THE OLD 
VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

AND OTHER SKETCHES 



BY ^ -r- 

GEORGE W:' BAGBY 



EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
THOMAS NELSON PAGE 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1910 



\i 



yh- 



Copyright, 1884, 1885, by 
MRS. GEORGE W. BAGBY 



Copyright, 1910, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published September, 19 10 




©CI, A 2 78 u '.'9 



PREFACE 

A VIRGINIA REALIST 

Virginia, mother of States and statesmen, as she 
used to be called, has contributed many men of worth 
to the multitude that America can number. All her 
sons have loved her well, while many have reflected 
great honor on her. But of them all, none has known 
how to draw her portrait like that one who years 
ago, under the mild voice and quiet exterior of State 
Librarian and occasional contributor to the Peri- 
odical Press, hid the soul of a man of letters and an 
artist. Like many another man of letters who has en- 
riched the world, George W. Bagby, before he " found 
himself," studied for a professional career — that vesti- 
bule to literature. He was first educated in part at 
Princeton, and later took the degree of M.D. at the 
University of Pennsylvania. After this he set up in 
Lynchburg, Virginia, as a practitioner of medicine. But 
the pen was much more grateful to his hand than the 
scalpel. He had the gift of seeing through the outer 
shell to the heart, and he soon began seeking in the 



PREFACE 

columns of the nearest newspaper the expression of 
his dreams. His first article to attract attention was 
a paper on Christmas, published as an editorial in the 
Lynchburg Virginian. It brought him one great re- 
ward. It led to a life-long friendship with the ac- 
complished gentleman, James MacDonald, who then 
edited the paper and became later the Secretary of 
State of Virginia. To this friendship Doctor Bagby 
years afterwards owed the appointment of Assistant 
Secretary of State and Librarian of the State Library, 
where, among the masters, his soul found society of 
its own rank. All his life, much of his work was 
thrown into the devouring maw of the daily press. 
His latest essays, as among his first, were papers which 
passed for letters or editorials, but were really literary 
essays which masked under these ephemeral names. 
Among these early contributions was the sketch entitled 
"The Sacred Furniture Warerooms," which is in- 
cluded in this volume. They gave him local celebrity, 
but nothing more. 

Local men of letters were not highly esteemed in 
Virginia in the old days — at least, not professional men 
of letters who bore the traces of the soil on them. Her 
treasured genius ran in the direction of the forum or 
the tented field, where personal courage was always 
to be shown as the badge of honor. Thus, her men 
vi 



PREFACE 

of ability mainly turned to these professions, and such 
literary gifts as Nature bestowed were mainly applied 
to the advocacy of governmental problems or to the 
polemics of political journalism. 

William Wirt, who was a man of letters, concealed 
his passion under a pseudonym and only ventured to 
declare himself in a biography of one of Virginia's 
great orators after he had achieved fame as a noted 
lawyer. 

"Why do you waste your time on a d d thing 

like poetry?" demanded a neighbor of Philip Pendle- 
ton Cooke, the author of "Florence Vane." "A man 
of your position might be a useful man." 

Even Poe, with a genius that is acknowledged the 
world over and that has never been surpassed in its 
kind, was never able to break through the defences 
with which established habit bulwarked itself among 
the burghers of Richmond and New York, and com- 
pel recognition of his extraordinary powers. His 
story is the saddest in the long line of neglected artists 
whose fate it has been to achieve fame too late to save 
them from perishing from want, of which destitution, 
want of food was the least part. 

Next to Poe, the most original of all Virginia writers 
was he whose reputation in his lifetime mainly rested 
on humorous sketches of a mildly satirical and exceed- 



PREFACE 

ingly original type; but who was master of a pathos 
rarely excelled by any author and rarely equalled by 
any American author. Like Poe, his work was known 
among his contemporaries merely by a small coterie 
of friends. But these adored him. 

Poe was the master of the absolutely imaginative 
sketch or tale — so purely imaginative that to discover 
any local color by which to give it locality it is necessary 
to analyze the work for unintentional traces of his 
surroundings. George W. Bagby, on the other hand, 
was absolutely realistic — so purely realistic that no one 
can read, even at random, a page of his genre sketches 
and not recognize at once the truth of the picture, and 
— if he be a Virginian — point to its original. He was 
not a fictionist but a realist. 

He scarcely ever penned a line that was not inspired 
by his love of Virginia and his appreciation of the 
life lived within her borders. Nearly all he wrote was 
of Virginia, pure and simple. Her love had sunk into 
his blood. But while he pictured Virginia, he reflected 
the human nature of the universe. He is set down in 
a recent biographical encyclopaedia merely as "Physi- 
cian and Humorist." He was much more than this. 
He was a physician by profession; a humorist by the 
way; but God made him a man of letters. 

That portion of his work, indeed, which brought 



PREFACE 

him most note in his lifetime among those who knew 
him were his humorous sketches and skits written in 
a sort of phonetic dialect which was the fashion of the 
time. It borders on broad farce, and, while it was 
always original and entertaining, its quaint humor, 
its most telling allusions, so often turned on local celebri- 
ties or histories as to lose their point with the out- 
side reader. Thus, the "Mozis Addums's Letters"; 
"Meekinses' Twinses" and "What I Did with My 
Fifty Millions," however amusing to the general 
reader, could only be fully appreciated by those who 
hold the key to constant allusion to the Society of 
Richmond, which furnished the field of his harmless 
satire. "Meekinses' Twinses" brought him more 
immediate fame than any other of his writings; but 
who that did not know the author and his surroundings 
could appreciate the picture of "Meekins, the weevle- 
eatenest man, I ever see!" Often in a line he drew a 
portrait so humorous, yet so exact, that acquaintances 
laughed over it for years. But they were portraits for 
his private collection and not for the public, and it is 
on his tenderer work that his literary fame must rest 
in the future. 

Among all Virginia's writers few have had the love 
to feel and the gift to portray the Virginia life as Bagby 
had. He was the first to picture Virginia as she was. 



PREFACE 

Other writers had magnified her through an ideahsm 
colored by reading of other hfe and other times. Caru- 
thers, Simms, Kennedy, Cooke and other Southern 
writers all pictured the life of the South as reflected 
through the lenses of Scott, and his imitators, such as 
James. They dressed their gentlemen in wigs and 
ruffles and short clothes and their ladies in brocades and 
quilted stomachers and flashing jewels; housed them 
in palaces and often moved them on stilts with measured 
strut as automata strung on wires and worked, how- 
ever skilfully, from behind the scenes. They spoke 
book-English and lived, if they lived at all, in slavish 
imitation of men of England, mirrored from the printed 
page of generations gone. The scenes were painted 
and so were the life and the speech. It was generally 
well done, often admirably done, but it was not real. 
And our people read English books, instead of Ameri- 
can, to Poe's sad chagrin. 

In this desert of unreality came a new writer, a con- 
tributor to newspapers and magazines, who, discarding 
the stilts and the struts and the painted palaces, 
pictured the old Virginia homesteads set back, simple 
and peaceful and plain, under their immemorial oaks 
and locusts, with the life lived there with its sweetness 
and simplicity and tender charm. Like Poe he was 
not generally valued — he was not an historian, nor 



PREFACE 

even a novelist — only a writer of sketches. He had 
no fixed occupation and probably no fixed income, 
At least, his income must have been meagre. Had he 
paid attention to business, he might possibly, though 
not probably, have been a "Useful Man." As it was, 
he was rather given to wandering about the country, 
writing humorous sketches of life for the press — 
"Wasting his time on a damned thing like poetry," for 
he wrote poetry though not generally verse. 

Much of his work was lost. Other parts of it 
drifted into the wide main of anonymous writing, or 
was boldly claimed by others as their property — as for 
example, his description of "How Rubenstein Played," 
which is famous enough to be in all readers though 
unattributed to its author. But for all this he has his 
reward, for he has preserved the life of the people be 
loved and given it the charm that was its chief grace — 
simplicity. 

When the old life shall have completely passed away 
as all life of a particular kind must pass, the curious 
reader may find in George W. Bagby's pages, pictured 
with a sympathy, a fidelity and an art which may he 
found nowhere else, the old Virginia life precisely as 
it was lived before the war, in the tidewater and south- 
side sections of Virginia. If it was idealized — as, when 
was anything written of with enthusiasm not ideal- 



PREFACE 

ized? — the character and the portraiture alike were 
faithfully drawn, even if touched with a light of imagi- 
nation; and the true secret of the art that portrayed 
them was the artist's love of the subject. He first of 
all discovered that in the simple plantation homes was 
a life more beautiful and charming than any that the 
gorgeous palaces could reveal, and that its best presen- 
tation was that which had the divine beauty of truth. 

It is always difficult to gauge the measure of influ- 
ences, but one writer has always felt that to George W. 
Bagby's pioneer work among the memories of the old 
Virginia life in its simplicity he owes an unending 
debt of gratitude. He opened his eyes to the beauty 
that lay at hand and whispered into his ear the charm 
that sang to his soul of the South. 

I cannot forbear, in closing this preface, to quote 
his own words from the close of his essay on " The 
Old Virginia Gentleman," to my mind the most 
charming picture of American life ever drawn. 

" I ask no man's pardon for what must seem to a 
stranger a most exaggerated estimate of my State and 
its people. In simple truth and beyond question there 
was in our Virginia country life a beauty, a simplicity, 
a purity, an uprightness, a cordial and lavish hospi- 
tality, warmth and grace which shine in the lens of 
memory with a charm that passes all language at my 



PREFACE 

command. It is gone with the social structure that 
gave it birth, and were I great, I would embalm it in 
the amber of such prose and verse as has not been 
written since John Milton laid down his pen. Only 
greatness can fitly do it." 

As the years pass by, the life he pictured so tenderly 
has faded more and more into the misty vague of the 
past; but it cannot be wholly lost. Glimpses of it have 
been preserved by a master's pencil; and it is in the 
hope of giving others the privilege which I have enjoyed 
so much that I have undertaken to edit this volume 
of the writings of George W. Bagby. 

Thomas Nelson Page. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

PREFACE, "a VIRGINIA REALIST," BY THOMAS 

NELSON PAGE V 

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF GEORGE WILLIAM 

BAGBY, BY EDWARD S. GREGORY . . . Xvii 

I. THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN .... 1 

II. BACON AND GREENS 45 

III. MY UNCLE FLATBACk's PLANTATION ... 69 

IV. MY WIFE AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES , 107 
V. FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 121 

VI. AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 135 

VII. JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 166 

Vni. the VIRGINIA EDITOR 217 

IX. canal REMINISCENCES 230 

X. THE SACRED FURNITURE WAREROOM . . . 250 

XI. MY VILE BEARD 257 

XII. A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 280 

XIII. THE PAWNEE WAR 290 

XIV. HOW RUBENSTEIN PLAYED 301 

XV. FILL JOANSES 308 

XVI. AFTER APPOMATTOX 311 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

The call of death has often proved an evangel to 
the man of letters in more than one way. 

The subject of this sketch, though widely known 
throughout the Republic, and for years a dear guest 
in many homes of Virginia, though he loved and sought 
society, shared the same fate of misconception, or of 
inadequate conception, till death drew the veil and 
revealed the true proportions of his mental and moral 
manhood. 

The main facts that punctuate the life and literary 
labors of George William Bagby may be briefly re- 
cited. The career of the man and the litterateur was 
largely professional, and may be left to find popular 
interpretation from the list and order of his works. 
The present volume introduces these but imperfectly 
and in part to the reading world. But if it fulfil its 
mission, and if the present generation prove able to 
appreciate and admire the mingled idyl and epic in 
which Dr. Bagby has embalmed the heroic and poetic 
Virginia of the past, some image may be formed, some 
memory quickened of one to whom many sins, if such 
there were, should be remitted — "for he loved much." 

Dr. Bagby was born in the very heart of Virginia, 
in the county of Buckingham, on August 13, 1828. 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

The section in which he first saw the hght was char- 
acteristic of the man. It lies at the roots of the Blue 
Ridge; its social traits and genealogies are of the East, 
and its location, though south of the James, is near 
the natural continuation of the great valley. In one 
respect, especially, Buckingham was rich: in the facili- 
ties it afforded for the study of the peculiarities of 
negro dialect, fetich, and other and all racial idiosyn- 
crasies. Never was there an apter pupil than the boy 
Bagby, since George Borrow made himself master of 
the Romany Lil. 

As Bceotia was the right home of Pindar and Tyr- 
taeus, so was this central county, with its wealth of 
black diamonds of every hue and form of originality 
and individuality, the right school for one who was 
destined to prove no less than the very Dickens and 
Shakespeare of the Virginia negro. 

Dr. Bagby's father was a merchant of Lynchburg; 
his mother's maiden name was Evans — a patronymic 
that reappears in the letters of Mozis Addums. Dr. 
Bagby was educated at Princeton, N. J., and at New- 
ark, Del., under the tuition of the late Dr. John S. 
Hart, one of the best of men and of teachers, who gave 
him an honored place in the Professor's " Manual of 
American Literature" (pp. 452-453). At the end of 
his sophomore year in Delaware College, young Bagby 
(now eighteen years old) began the study of medicine, 
and in due time took his regular degree of M.D. at 
the University of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia. He 
then removed to Lynchburg, where his father lived, to 
practice, and he hung out his sign in front of a tene- 
xviii 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

ment that then stood on the site of the now stately 
Opera House of that city. But it may be doubted if 
really he ever attended half a dozen cases. By a law, 
however, as sure as that which rules the courses of 
gravitation, Bagby soon found, without seeking, the 
career for which every endowment of nature had copi- 
ously prepared and deliberately dedicated him. The 
Virginian of Lynchburg, founded in 1808, was then 
edited by James McDonald, Esq., since Secretary of 
the Commonwealth and Adjutant-General of Virginia, 
to whom, ten years after. Dr. Bagby wrote the tribute 
in "Blue Eyes," that he "was essentially a gentleman." 
To him, as to a kindred, even brother spirit, in cult- 
ure and humanity, the young and eccentric stranger 
was naturally magnetized. Those were the good old 
days when people had plenty of elbow-room. When 
the editor was absent, his friend took his place; and 
under this gateway of locum tenens Dr. Bagby made 
his way upon the stage which he afterward so widely 
and so luminously filled. It was a happy omen that, 
on the appearance of his very first contribution, an edi- 
torial article on "Christmas," the town was taken by 
storm, and saw, as was said of Macaulay's "Milton," 
that a new star had risen above the horizon. But " the 
Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick." 
Sketch after sketch rapidly followed, some of which 
are included in this volume, and all of which are as 
well worthy to live as the earlier essays of Thackeray 
or Lamb; appearing in the poverty of literary appa- 
ratus in Virginia, for the most part as editorial articles 
in the Virginian. Among such was the essay entitled 
xix 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

"The Sacred Furniture Warerooms," which neither 
Addison nor Irving would have disowned. Dr. Bagby 
has said to the writer that his Hterary fertihty at that 
time was prodigious. He must have read ravenously 
also. Meanwhile, too, he was a man about town, and 
was known for a genius, and for one who would make, 
or had indeed already made, a shining mark. 

Labor and fame came crowding upon him suddenly, 
as the fruit of this local distinction, and from the in- 
spiration of this local success. Early in the fifties, the 
Lynchburg Express, a paper founded, and for some 
years conducted, by the late Hudson Garland, came 
into the possession of Dr. Bagby and his life-long 
friend, the late Capt. George Woodville Latham — 
another rare and lit spirit, too soon involved in the 
damps of disease and the arrest of death. But the 
business management was neglected or ill-managed; 
and the Express — fortunately for Bagby — became num- 
bered among Lynchburg epitaphs and eclipses. 

During this time, Dr. Bagby wrote several articles 
that were published in Harper's Magazine. One of 
these was entitled "My Wife, and My Theory about 
Wives" — a specimen of sentimental extravaganza 
worthy of the hand which traced the shadowy and 
sacred image of the lost love of Sir Roger de Coverley. 
Another was entitled "The Virginia Editor," and was 
a burlesque character sketch of the swaggering, duel- 
ling, and drinking soi-disant " Colonel," who then only 
too often represented the power of the press in the 
sunny South. 

It was professedly a caricature; and it had been 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

shown, before its appearance, as a good joke, to nu- 
merous journalistic friends. Yet, when it was pub- 
Hshed, one of these was induced by other persons to 
regard it as an assault upon himself. He sent there- 
upon a challenge, which was promptly accepted;* 
seconds were named; Captain Latham for Bagby, and 
Roger A. Pryor for the party of the second part. 
Bladensburg was reached; the preliminaries were ad- 
justed, and the principals took position. At this criti- 
cal moment, a hack arrived containing the Hon. 
Thomas S. Bocock, then a Member of Congress, and a 
friend of all parties, through whose efforts the quarrel 
was composed, and everybody sent about his pacific 
business. 

The collapse of the Express gave to each of its two 
editors more congenial employment, and an ampler 
field. Through the influence of Mr. Wm. M. Semple, 
lately before the associate editor of the Lynchburg 
Virginian, and at that time correspondent at Wash- 
ington of the New Orleans Crescent, Dr. Bagby was 
promoted to the latter position; and, through family 
influence, Woodville Latham was employed as clerk 
of the Naval Committee of the House of Representa- 
tives. 

It was the destiny of one to be a dreamer, a poet; 
and not much that he dreamed took a living form; 
but Bagby must have been a dauntless and indefati- 
gable laborer, and the mere list of the publications for 
which he wrote affords proof of his heroic industry 

* " George had all sorts of good pluck, and plenty of it; he 
was not afraid of any man's face on earth." — Dr. H. G. L. 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

and of the fatal fertility of his genius. Besides the 
Crescent (in those days, remember, his letters were 
quasi editorial and had even a greater weight than 
that of mere local comment), he corresponded regularly 
for the Charleston Mercury and the Richmond Dis- 
patch, and wrote copiously for the Southern Literary 
Messenger, and sometimes for the Atlantic Monthly. 
It was through the medium of the Messenger that he 
lodged his first deep and popular impression as a 
humorous writer. It may be questioned whether any- 
thing of a racier flavor, free from slang, yet fresh as 
dawn dew with idioms of the heart and hearth ; whether 
anything of more sylvan depth and of more natural 
oddity and simplicity ever saw the light, than the "Let- 
ters of Mozis Addums to Billy Evans of Kurdsville," 
in which the society, the man-traps, and the wonders 
of Washington City are described by a rustic writer to 
a rustic friend. The correspondent is represented as 
visiting the capital to procure a patent for a machine 
of his invention, for executing his idea of perpetual 
motion. An amiable and virtuous Irish servant-girl 
rescues him out of a number of scrapes, and Addums 
ends by marrying her. 

Soon after this performance, John R. Thompson, 
one of the best beloved of the sons of song, resigned 
the editorial chair of the Southern Literary Messenger, 
to become the editor of the Field and Farm, of New 
York. The very terms of the announcement signified 
to those who were anyway behind the scenes, that Dr. 
Bagby had virtually already succeeded to the tripod of 
the magazine from which no less a seer than Edgar A. 
xxii 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

Poe had once spoken. And so he had, as the tide- 
page of the next issue announced. Whatever the pres- 
tige with which he entered upon the discharge of his 
duties, the pressure and perplexities of the situation 
were all adverse. In other words, there could be at 
the South, as at that time, no purely literary work, or 
literary leisure, when the very air was saturated with 
politics, and, no more than religion, could literature 
resist its access. Yet the volume of the Messenger for 
1860 will be found to contain critical and creative work 
in quite a notable degree, and of a high order of merit. 
The romaunt of " Blue Eye and Battlewick," a Christ- 
mas story, to some extent, perhaps, an unconscious 
imitation of Dickens, but altogether sui generis, and 
like the echoes in Ireland and in Ossian, which repeat 
what they hear with variations of their own — ran 
through this volume of the Messenger, in five instal- 
ments: January — May. Many minor sketches ac- 
companied the unfolding of the "Blue Eyes" story, 
and the editorial department was always kept full and 
fresh. In it Dr. Bagby defended the rights of the 
South, till, high over the noises of the press and the 
clamor of orators, rose suddenly and rudely the sharp 
thunder from Sumter, and the war was flagrant. 
Though wholly unfitted, physically, Bagby entered the 
ranks as a private, and was found with the earliest 
troops who were assembled at Manassas. There, fort- 
unately, he soon attracted the attention of General 
Beauregard's chief of staff, and was, in part, relieved 
of duties of which he was incapable, by being detailed 
for clerical work at head-quarters. It was not long, 
xxiii 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

however, before his health proved inadequate for even 
this service, and he was given a final discharge. 

Resuming his profession, he sang the songs of a 
nation, while others fought its battles and made its 
laws. 

Through every difficulty and over every obstacle — 
the scarcity of paper and skilled labor, the absence 
of competent assistance of every kind, and the ever- 
dwindling Confederate ration — Dr. Bagby sustained 
the Messenger till its proprietorship changed, in 1864, 
and then laid down the burden, having fought the good 
fight with unfaltering courage. 

Besides the magazine. Dr. Bagby performed, dur- 
ing the war, a vast amount of literary and journalistic 
work. He was the correspondent, at the Confederate 
capital, of every Southern paper that could secure the 
favor of being represented by him: the Mobile Regis- 
ter, the Memphis Appeal, the Columbus, Ga., Sun, the 
Charleston Mercury, and others, besides his regular 
service for some years as editorial contributor to the 
Richmond Whig, of which his friend McDonald had 
become the editor. His boldness of comment on the 
course of events within the ill-starred Confederacy led 
him to write occasionally for the Richmond Examiner, 
though he did not approve, in general, its reckless 
method. His intercourse with the editor of the Ex- 
aminer gave him material for the sketch published 
shortly after the war, entitled, "John M. Daniel's 
Latch-key." Besides his work on the papers men- 
tioned, Bagby wrote brilliant articles for the Southern 
Illustrated News, and was every way useful, 
xxiv 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

The success of Dr. Bagby before and during the 
war well justified his seeking to pursue in New York 
a journaHstic and Hterary career. His disabiUty in 
this Hne, by reason of the loss in part of his eyesight, 
induced him to enter the lecturing field, in which a 
rich reception and a bountiful harvest awaited him. 
More than that, his choice of a new profession involved 
his return to Virginia, now made doubly dear to him 
in that, in 1863, he had espoused Miss Parke W. Cham- 
berlayne, of Richmond, daughter of Dr. Lewis Cham- 
berlayne, who represented in her own person at least 
two of the noble lines of Normans whose shields are 
suspended in Battle Abbey — the lines of Chamber- 
layne and of D'Aubigny (Dabney) — illustrious English 
and Virginian lineages. Let the laurel of honor to 
this lady of love and grace be deferred to a later page, 
while we deal at present with the fortunes of the lect- 
urer, and the turn that was given to the tide of his 
life by this new venture. 

The profession was not wholly fresh to him, as he 
himself relates. " Previous to . the war he had been 
fairly successful with his lecture entitled *An Apology 
for Fools,' but in the winter of 1865-6 his lecture on 
'Bacon and Greens or the Native Virginian' fairly 
took the City of Richmond by storm, and was as great 
a success throughout Virginia and Maryland." 

His next essay, "The Disease Called Love," is per- 
haps the most popular of all his lectures, with old and 
young. In addition to these was another lecture, en- 
titled "Women-Folks," and one on the "Virginia 
Negro," which was only faulty in its depth of truth. 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

Its delivery in New York at once drew the partisan 
line, which renders fair judgment not only impossible 
but undesirable. Nobody really wanted to know the 
actual state of the case, and the preacher of truth al- 
lowed himself to be discouraged and repulsed by the 
first chill reception which he suffered. 

In 1869, G. C. Walker was elected Governor of Vir- 
ginia as a liberal Republican; and under his admin- 
istration and that of his successors. Gen. James L. 
Kemper and Col. F. W. M. Holliday, Hon. James 
McDonald served as Secretary of State. Faithful to 
the tartan blood which he bore, and true to the obliga- 
tions of old times; secure too in the sense of the emi- 
nent fitness of his friend. General McDonald appointed 
Dr. Bagby assistant secretary, and as such custodian 
of the State Library. Never was there loyalty to a 
dead cause such as his since the days of the Scotch 
Jacobites; his heart was ever with the "Charlie over 
the water," when indeed there was no king except in 
his thought. And the aching knowledge that he loved 
a dead dream weighed on him always, and then broke 
his heart; and he left other less consecrated men to 
face the new world of untried and raw conditions, 
while to himself, as when the "whole round table was 
dissolved," was given of God the freedom of the black- 
stoled barge, and the weeping queens, and the com- 
fort of green valleys and deep peace in the Isle of 
Avillion, beyond the seas. 

Little remains to be said of his life. The fact of its 
incessant activity is told in the mere catalogue of the 
papers to which he contributed and the lectures he 
xxvi 



GEORGE -WILLIAM BAGBY 

delivered. One of the very best and brightest of his 
creations, about this time, was his satire entitled 
"Wliat I Did with my Fifty Millions," an evolution, 
wholly original withal, from the lamp of Alnaschar 
and the milkmaid of iEsop — or of Noah Webster. I 
say satire, not ignorant that the word is not adequate 
nor accurate, for it was part of the genius of our friend 
that he created a school of style and theme in letters 
all his own, with which the terminology of rhetoric 
has not much to do. 

Another very happy idyl was his "Reminiscences of 
Canal Life," in which his loyal love of nature finds 
an expression as strong and yet simple as the mother 
longing of a lost child. In Goethe's "Renunciants," 
the highest culture was imaged by the figure which 
gazed with folded palms upon the ground. Such was 
Bagby's reverence, and such his rapt contemplation of 
the garment of God, which shows, through the drapery 
of rock and rill, and cloud and storm and mountain, 
the august proportions of the Eternal. Happy was he, 
after all experience of doubt and darkness, to find at 
last in these vast folds of form the evidence and expres- 
sion of a Father of love and light, who comforts and 
helps the weak-hearted, and raises up those who fall. 
In the peace of this faith he fell asleep, like Stephen, 
while "all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly at 
him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel." 

During this period he composed and delivered sev- 
eral of his best lectures — "The Old Virginia Gentle- 
man" and "The Virginia Negro." The latter was 
intended for delivery North; but he found, after a 



GEOEGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

brief but suflScient experience, that the North thought 
they knew more of the negro than he did. Returning, 
he wrote the most merry and exquisite of all his crea- 
tions — "Meekinses' Twinses" — a fiction founded upon 
fact. Mr. Meekins acquired in a week as wide an 
acquaintance as Mr. Addums in a dozen years; and 
the feed sto' in Rocketts had as good a title to a place 
in the limbus of genius as the "Old Curiosity Shop" 
or the City Mildendo. Hereabouts also belongs the 
sketch which has given him his widest and most graven 
fame — the sketch of "Rubenstein at the Piano" — which 
Mr. Watterson has admitted into his compilation of 
Southern humor, and which is found already in many 
"Readers." I am told it has been translated into a 
German musical magazine. It has always reminded 
me, in structure — though the themes are wide enough 
apart — of the "Dream Fugue" attached to De Quin- 
cey's "Vision of Sudden Death." 

After these writings. Dr. Bagby made for the State 
newspaper, then edited by Capt. John Hampden 
Chamberlayne (brother of his wife, and one of the 
brightest and best of the knights whose accolade was 
given on the two fields of battle and labor), a trip 
through Virginia, describing each stage in letters, 
whose power of paint and of thought surpassed any 
production of the kind in the history of Virginian 
journalism. 

A like series of letters, entided, "New England 

Through the Back Door," written for the Baltimore 

Sun, gave us a Yankee-land more gracious, fresh, and 

genial even than the "Hills of the Shatemuc." Then 

xxviii 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

came desultory writing for many papers. Mr. A. 
McDonald, editor of the Lynchburg News, was again 
one of his generous friends to the last; the Philadel- 
phia Weekly Times published one of his papers; and 
his last composition appeared in Harper's Magazine. 

After that, death; not all at once, but by gradual 
stages, as of a siege. He sought 'the relief of the Heal- 
ing Springs in vain, and then, in August of '83, deso- 
late but not despairing, he turned home to die. 

The foregoing pages have been written in vain if 
they have not conveyed some sense of the writer's 
appreciation of Dr. Bagby's genius and moral great- 
ness. "There is no man left in Virginia fit to lift the 
lid of his inkstand," wrote Dr. Lafferty of him — a 
true saying. "Never in Virginia letters shall we see 
his like again," wrote John Esten Cooke. All pens, 
great and small, sought, with the piety of "Old Mor- 
tality," to deepen the inscription of love and praise on 
his tomb, and to clear off the grass and weeds. The 
most faithful and beautiful of the tributes paid to his 
memory was woven from the heart through the pen of 
his lifetime friend. Gen. James McDonald, who, true 
to the habit of his Highland blood, was the well-trusted 
comrade of thirty odd years, and one of the executors 
of his literary remains. 

Long time as death was known to be approaching, 
its final access was a surprise at last. "Death will 
not be fooled," he had written in "Blue Eyes." "He 
will have his dues. Preparation avails nothing. Rem 
tetigit acu. Aye, he does touch sharply, as with a 
poisoned thorn, piercing to the core. When no answer, 
xxix 



GEORGE WILLIAM BAGBY 

be it ever so faint and feeble, comes from the lips that 
have thanked us; when no turning of the eye repays 
in grateful light the hands that smooth the sunken 
pillow; when all is still there, and no sound shall be 
there forever — forever! — how burst the fountains, how 
the waters are unsealed, as though never a thought of 
that hour of anguish had warned us of its coming. 

The Virginia of the future may be grander, richer, 
and stronger than the Virginia, "immaculate and im- 
mortal," which his love and imagination touched into 
all the lines and colors of ideal perfection; but it can- 
not ever and forever be the same Virginia, the mother 
and nurse in classic and Christian greatness of Wash- 
ingtons and Lees, of Stuarts and Rodeses, and of chil- 
dren humbler in birth and state, but all as dutiful and 
dauntless. Whatever there was that was brightest and 
sweetest in the older civilization, in what he queerly 
called the Virginia of the "spring and gourd" period, 
whose seedy relics are even as an offence in the eyes 
of the new generation; whatever is truest and best 
and bravest that survives among the most potent fac- 
tors and kindliest influences of the Virginia that is yet 
to be, will owe its survival and its vitality to the labor 
and love of one to whom — more fitly than to most — we 
may apply the sad consolation, "After life's fitful fever 
he sleeps well." 

Edward S. Gregory. 



I 

THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

T TIS house was not jammed down within two inches 
■*■ -*■ and a half of " the main, plain road." Why! He 
held, as his father did before him, that it was immodest 
to expose even his house to the public gaze. Perhaps 
he had that lack of curiosity which, the newspaper 
men tell us, is characteristic of the savage — most of 
us, you know, are descended from Pocahontas — and, 
at all events, it would never do to have his head-quar- 
ters on the very edge of a plantation of one thousand 
or two thousand acres. 

What was there to see on the main, plain road? 
Nothing, Morning and evening the boys dashed by 
on their colts, hurrying to or from the academy, so 
called. On Sundays, carry-alls, buggies, and wagons, 
filled with women-folk and children, in split-bottom 
chairs, wended their way to Mount Zion, a mile or 
two further on in the woods. Twice a week the stage 
rattled along, nobody inside, a negro in the boot, the 
driver and the negro-trader, both drunk, on top. 
Once a month the lawyers, in their stick-gigs or "sin- 
gle-chairs," and the farmers on their plantation mares, 
chatting and spitting amicably, with switches poised 
in up-and-downy elbows, jogged on to court. And 
1 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

that was all that was to be seen on the main, plain 
road, except the doctor and the deputy-sheriff, with 
their leggings and saddle-bags. 

Tramps there were none, unless you call the county 
idiot, who stalked barefoot through the winter snow, 
fanning himself industriously the while with a turkey- 
wing fan, a tramp. Once a year the pedler, with 
his pack, or the plausible oil-cloth table-cloth man, 
put in an appearance; and that was literally all. 
Why, even the hares played in the middle of the lone- 
some road! And yet there was a life and animation 
along the county roads, especially about the country 
taverns, in the good old days (they were good) which 
we who remember them sadly miss in these times of 
rapid railroad transit. 

A stranger would never dream that the narrow 
turning out of the main road, scarcely marked by a 
rut, led to a habitation better than a charcoal-burner's 
shed. But the drivers of the high-swung, bug-back 
family carriages of the period knew that turning 
"mighty well." So did many gentlemen, old and 
young, in all parts of the commonwealth. "Oak- 
lands," " Bellefield," "Mount Airy," whatever it might 
be named, was the half-way house to "Cousin Tom's," 
"Uncle Randolph's," or "grandpa's," twenty or 
thirty miles farther on. Also it was a convenient place 
to spend the night and mend the high-swung bug-back 
from Alpha to Omega when on your way to the White 
Sulphur, Richmond, or anywhere. , Truth to tell, 
there was no getting around it; it drew you like a 
magnet. 

2 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

And whenever the road was adorned by a white- 
haired, florid-faced gentleman astride a blooded horse, 
with his body-servant in charge of his portmanteau 
following at respectful distance behind, that party, 
you may be very sure, turned off the main, plain road 
and disappeared in the depths of the forest. Colonel 
Tidewater had come half the length of the State to 
try a little more of Judge Piedmont's Madeira, to 
know what on earth induced Piedmont to influence 
the governor in making that appointment, and to in- 
quire if it were possible that Piedmont intended to 
bring out Jimson — of all human beings, Jimson! — 
for Congress ? 

"Disappeared in the depths of the forest?" Yes. 
And why? Because there must be plenty of wood 
where there is no end of negroes, and fifteen or twenty 
miles of worm-fencing to keep in repair. So there 
was a forest on this side and on that of the Old Vir- 
ginia Gentleman's home; sometimes on all sides; and 
the more woodland the better. How is a man to get 
along without clearing new ground every year? The 
boys must have some place to hunt squirrels. Every- 
body is obliged to have wild indigo to keep flies off 
his horse's head in summer. If you have no timber, 
what becomes of your hogs when you turn them out? 
How about fuel? Where is your plank to come from, 
and your logs for new cabins and tobacco barns ? Are 
you going to buy poles for this, that, and the other ? 
There's no use talking — negroes can't be healthy with- 
out wood, nor enjoy life without pine-knots when they 
go fishing at night. 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

Pleasant it was to trot through these forests on a 
hot summer day, or any other day, knowing what 
was to come at your journey's end. Pleasant, too, 
to bowl along under the arching boughs, albeit the 
ruts were terrible in places, and there were two or 
three immemorial holes, made by the butts of saw- 
logs (you could swear that the great mark in the 
centre of the road was the tail-trace of an Iguanodon, 
or some other Greek beast of prehistoric times) — 
two or three old holes, that made every vehicle, but 
chiefly the bug-back carriage, lurch and careen worse 
than a ship in a heavy sea. 

But these were useful holes. They educated the 
young negro driver, and compelled the old one to 
keep his wrinkled, mealy hand in. They toned, or 
rather tuned up, the nerves of the young ladies, and 
gave them excuse for uttering the prettiest shrieks; 
whereat the long-legged cousin, leaning to the left 
at an angle of ninety degrees, with his abominable 
red head forever inside the carriage window, would 
display his horsemanship in the most nimble, over- 
affectionate, and unpleasing manner — unpleasing to 
the young gentleman from the city, who was not a 
cousin, did not want to be a cousin, wasn't a bit proud 
of riding, but had "some sense of decency, and really 
a very high regard for the sensibilities of the most 
refined ladies in the whole State of Virginia, sir!" 
Many were the short but fervent prayers ejaculated 
by the old ladies in consequence of these same holes, 
which came to be provocatives of late piety, and on 
that account were never molested; and they were 
4 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

prized beyond measure by the freckle-face ten-year- 
old brother, who, standing up behind and hanging 
back by the carriage-straps, yelled with delight every 
time the bug-back went "way down," and wished 
from the very bottom of his horrid boy's heart that 
"the blamed old thing would bust all to flinders and 
plump the whole caboodle smack into the middle of 
the mud puddle." 

Colonel Tidewater declared that Piedmont's forest 
road was the worst in the world, and enough to bring 
in jeopardy soul as well as body; to which Piedmont 
hotly replied that a five-mile stretch in August through 
the sand in Tidewater's county was eternity in Hades 
itself. 

The forest once passed, a scene not of enchant- 
ment, though contrast often made it seem so, but of 
exceeding beauty, met the eye. Wide, very wide fields 
of waving grain, billowy seas of green or gold, as 
the season chanced to be, over which the scudding 
shadows chased and played, gladdened the heart with 
wealth far spread. Upon lowlands level as a floor, 
the plumed and tasselled corn stood tall and dense, 
rank behind rank in military alignment — a serried 
army, lush and strong. The rich, dark soil of the 
gently swelling knolls could scarcely be seen under 
the broad, lapping leaves of the mottled tobacco. 
The hills were carpeted with clover. Beneath the 
tree-clumps, fat cattle chewed the cud or peaceful 
sheep reposed, grateful for the shade. In the midst 
of this plenty, half hidden in foliage over which the 
graceful shafts of the Lombard poplar towered, with 
5 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

its bounteous garden and its orchards heavy with fruit 
near at hand, peered the old mansion, white, or dusky 
red or mellow gray by the storm and shine of years. 

Seen by the tired horseman, halting at the wood- 
land's edge, this picture, steeped in the intense, quiv- 
ering summer noonlight, filled the soul with unspeak- 
able emotions of beauty, tenderness, peace, home. 

" — How calm could we rest 
In that bosom of shade, with the friends we love bestl" 

Sorrows and cares were there — where do they not 
penetrate? but oh! dear God, one day in these sweet, 
tranquil homes outweighed a fevered lifetime in the 
gayest cities of the globe. Tell me nothing; I under- 
value naught that man's heart delights in; I dearly 
love operas and great pageants; but I do know — as 
I know nothing else — that the first years of human 
life, and the last, yea, if it be possible, all the years, 
should be passed in the country. The towns may do 
for a day, a week, a month at most; but nature, mother 
nature, pure and clean, is for all time; yes, for eternity 
itself. What think you of heaven? Is it a narrow 
street, packed full of houses, with a theatre at one end 
and a beer saloon at the other ? Nay! the city of God 
is under the trees and beside the living waters. 

These homes of Virginia are ruins now; not like 
the ivied walls and towers of European lands, but 
ruins none the less. The houses, indeed, are still 
there, little changed, it may be, as to the outside; but 
the light, the life, the charm are gone forever. *'The 
soul is fled." 

6 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

About these Virginia homes there was much that 
was unUke the houses I have seen in the more popu- 
lous States of the North and in Canada. A South- 
erner travelling through central Pennsylvania and 
western New York to the falls of Niagara, and thence 
down the St. Lawrence, is painfully impressed by the 
scarcity — the absence, one might say — of human be- 
ings around the houses and in the fields. There are 
no children playing in the cramped-up yards. The 
few laborers in the narrow fields make but a pitiful 
show, even at harvest time. The farms have a de- 
serted look, that is most depressing to one accustomed 
to the sights and sounds of Virginia country life. For 
thirty miles below Quebec I watched the houses that 
thickly line the verdant river banks, but saw no human 
being — not one. The men were at work in the vil- 
lages, the women were at the wash-tubs or in the kitch- 
ens; and as for the children, I know not where they 
were. 

How unlike Virginia of the olden time! There, 
people were astir, and something was always going 
on. The young master, with his troop of little darkies, 
was everywhere — in the yard, playing horses; in 
the fields, hunting larks or partridges; in the or- 
chards, hunting for birds' nests; at the barn, sliding 
down the straw stacks; in the woods, twisting or 
smoking hares out of hollow trees; in the "branch," 
fishing or bathing (we call it "washing" in Virginia); 
in the patch, plugging half-ripe watermelons; or else- 
where, in some fun or mischief. "Young Mistiss," 
in her sun-bonnet, had her retinue of sable attend- 
7 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

ants, who, bare-armed and bare-footed, accompanied 
her in her rambles through the garden, the open wood- 
land near the house, and sometimes as far as the big 
gate. By the way, whenever you heard the big gate 
slam, you might know that "comp'ny" was coming. 
And comp'ny was always coming — beaux to see the 
grown-up girls, neighbors, friends, strangers, kinfolks 
— no end of them. Then some comely negro woman, 
with bright kerchief on her head, was ever passing to 
and fro, on business with her mistress; and few days 
passed that did not witness the "drop-shot gang" of 
small Ethiops sweeping up the fallen leaves that dis- 
figured the broad yard. 

Some one was always coming or going. The gig, 
the double buggy, the carry-all, the carriage, were in 
constant use. Horses, two to a dozen, were seldom 
wanting at the rack, and the boy of the family was sure 
to be on the horse-block, begging permission to "ride 
behind," or to carry the horse to the stable. Bringing 
in breakfast, dinner, and supper, and carrying the 
things back to the kitchen, kept three or four servants 
busy from dawn till long after dark. The mistress had 
a large provision store at the smoke-house, where there 
was much to do every day except Sunday. So, too, 
with the dairy. From the rooms set apart for weaving 
and spinning came the tireless droning of wheels and 
the clatter of looms — ^wonderful machines, that de- 
lighted the knots of white and black children gathered 
at the open doorways. How gracefully Aunt Sooky 
stepped back and forth with her thread, as it kept 
growing and lengthening on the spindle! Why, I can 
8 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

smell the wool-rools now, and see the brooches, and 
the shucks on which they were wound! 

These were the scenes and occupations that gave 
life to the house. In the fields, from the time that the 
gangs of ploughers (we never called them ploughmen), 
moving steadily en echelon, turned up the rich sod, 
until the wheat was shocked, the corn laid by, the 
tobacco planted, suckered, primed, topped, cut, and 
hung in the golden sunshine to cure, there was some- 
thing perpetually afoot to enliven the plantation. But 
who shall tell of harvest-time, when the field fairly 
swarmed with cutters, the binders, the shockers, the 
gleaners, all agog with excitement and joy? A mur- 
rain on your modern reapers and mowers! What care 
I if Cyrus McCormick was born in Rockbridge County ? 
These new-fangled "contraptions" are to the old sys- 
tem what the little, dirty, black steam-tug is to the 
three-decker, with its cloud of snowy canvas towering 
to the skies — the grandest and most beautiful sight in 
the world. I wouldn't give Uncle Isham's picked man, 
"long Billy Carter," leading the field, with one good 
drink of whiskey in him — I wouldn't give one swing of 
his cradle and one "ketch" of his straw for all the 
mowers and reapers in creation. 

But what was the harvest-field compared to thresh- 
ing-time at the bam? Great goodness alive! Do you 
all remember that huge cog-wheel aloft, and the little 
cog-wheels, that big post that turned 'round, the thick 
shafts — two horses to a shaft; eight or ten horses to a 
machine — (none of your one-horse, out-o'-door con- 
cerns — this was under a large shed, close to the barn), 
9 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

and how we sat on those shafts, and how we drove 
those horses, and hollered at 'em, and how the dust 
flew, and what a glorious, glorious racket, hubbub, 
and confusion there was ? Surely you do. 

Then came beating-cider time. Bless me! how sick 
"us boys" used to get from drinking sweet cider and 
eating apple "pommels"! You recollect the cider- 
press ? None of your fish-traps, cut in two, and set on 
end, with an iron crank, but a good, honest beam, a 
foot and a half thick, and fifteen to twenty feet long, 
jobbed into a hole cut clean through a stout oak tree, 
with a wooden trough holding half a ton of rocks, and 
an affair with holes and pegs, to regulate the prizing. 
Now that was a press, a real press — not a gimcrack. 
Don't ask me about corn-shuckings. It would take a 
separate lecture to describe them; besides, you already 
know more about them than I can tell you. 

If the house, the barn, the fields were alive, so also 
were the woods. There the axe was ever plying. Tim- 
ber to cut for cabins (the negroes increased so fast), for 
tobacco houses and for fuel, new ground to clear, etc., 
etc. The crack of the gun was heard continually — the 
boys were shooting squirrels for Brunswick stew — and 
when the wild pigeons came, there was an endless fusil- 
ade. As for sports, besides squirrels, 'coons, and 'pos- 
sums, there were partridges, robins, larks, and even 
kildees and bull-bats, for shooting; but far above all 
these, was the fox-hunt. Ah! who can ever forget it? 
When the chase swept through the forest and across 
the hills, the hounds and the beagles in full, eager, 
piercing, passionate cry, making music for the very 
10 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

gods and driving the huntsmen stark mad, what 
were staked and ridered fences, tangled underwood, 
gullies, ditches, banks that were almost precipices, 
what was life, what was death to the young fellow just 
out of college, that glorious music ringing in his ears, 
his horse, a thing all fire and steel, going under him 
like a thunderbolt, and the fox not five hundred yards 
away? Tell me Southern country life was monoto- 
nous! Bah! 

Why, something or somebody was forever stirring. 
In the dead of night, hours before daybreak, some old 
negro was eternally getting up to chunk his fire, or to 
cut another stick or two. In the dead of winter, the 
wagons were busy hauling wood, to keep up the grand 
old fires in the big old fireplaces. And at the worst, 
the boys could always jump a hare out of a briar-patch, 
and then such "hollering," such whistling, such whoop- 
ing, such calling of dogs: — "Here, here, here! who-eet! 
whoop!" as if Bedlam had broke loose. 

Of church-going on Sunday, when the girls kept the 
carriage waiting; of warrant-tryings, vendues, election 
and general muster days, of parties of all kinds, from 
candy-stews and "infairs" up to the regular country 
balls at the county seat, of fun at negro weddings, of 
fish-fries, barbecues, sailing-parties, sora and duck 
shooting, rides and drives — the delights of Tidewater 
life — of dinings in and dinings out, of the bishop's 
visit, of company come for all day in addition to the 
company regularly domiciled for the week, month, or 
half-year, I need not speak at length. Country life in 
Virginia tiresome! You are crazy! 
11 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

The habitation of the old Virginia gentleman — house 
is too short a word to express it — always large enough, 
however small it might be, was sometimes stately, like 
the great square house of "Rosewell," and others I 
might name. As a rule, to which, indeed, there were 
many exceptions, it was neither planned nor built — it 
grew: and that was its great charm. To be sure, the main 
structure or body of it had been put up with an eye not 
to convenience but to elbow-room and breathing space — 
without which no Virginian can live. But in course of 
time, as the children came along, as the family con- 
nections increased, and as the desire, the necessity in 
fact, of keeping a free hotel grew upon him, the old 
gentleman kept adding a wing here and tacking a shed 
room there until the original building became mixed 
up, and, as it were, lost in the crowd of additions. In 
cold weather the old house was often miserably uncom- 
fortable, but at all other times it was simply glorious. 
There was, of course, a large hall or passage, a parlor 
and dining-room, "the chamber" proper for the old 
lady and for everybody, and a fine old-time staircase 
leading to the guest-chambers, but the rest of the house 
ran mostly into nondescript apartments, access to 
which was not always easy. For the floors were on 
different levels, as they ought to be in an old country 
house. Fail to step up or down at the proper time, and 
you were sure to bump your head or bruise your shins. 
Then there were dark closets, cuddies, and big old 
chests that came mayhap from England, say nothing of 
the garret, full of mystery, that stretched the whole 
length of the house. Here was romance for child- 
12 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

hood — plenty of it. These irregular rooms, two steps 
up and three down before you got fairly into them, 
teemed with poetry; but your modern houses, with 
square rooms all on a dead level, are prosaic as dry- 
goods boxes. 

A fine old house it was to play hide-and-seek in, to 
romp with the girls, to cut all sorts of capers without 
disturbing the old folks. Then these dark passages, 
these cuddies and closets, that big garret, never failed 
to harbor some good-natured old hip-shot fool of a 
family ghost, who was everlastingly "projicking" 
around at night, after the girls had quit their talk, 
making the floors crack, the doors creak, and whisper- 
ing his nonsense through the keyhole, as if he could 
scare you or anybody else! To modernize the old 
Virginian's house would kill that ghost, and if it be a 
crime to kill a live man, what an enormity it must be 
to kill one who has been dead a hundred years, who 
never harmed a living soul, and who, I suspect, was 
more fretted than sorry when the young ones would 
persist in hiding their heads under the bedclothes for 
fear of him! "You little geese! it's nobody but me," 
and "whish, whish, whish," he would go on with his 
idiotic whispering. 

The heavy, dark furniture; the huge sideboard; the 
quaint solid chairs; the more common article, with 
spraddled legs, scooped seats, and stick backs; the 
diamond-paned book-case; the long horse-hair sofas, 
with round tasselled pillows, hard as logs of ebony, with 
nooks to hide them in; the graceful candle-stand; the 
gilt mirror, with its three compartments; the carved 
13 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

mantel, so high you could hardly reach the silver can- 
dlesticks on its narrow top; the bureaux, with swinging 
brass handles; the dressing-tables; the high-post bed- 
stead, with valance and tester; the 

But stay! it suddenly and painfully occurs to me — 
there are grown-up men and women actually here, in 
this room, immortal beings, who never laid eyes on a 
bed-wrench and pin, and who do not so much as know 
the meaning of cording a bed! Think of it! Yet these 
people live on. Ah me! the fashion of this world 
passeth away! 

The massive dinner table, never big enough to hold 
all the dishes, some of which had to go on the hearth 
to be kept warm; the old-time silver, the heavy cut 
glassware, the glass pitcher for the thick, rich milk — 
how it foamed when they "poured it high!" — the Can- 
ton china, thin as thin biscuit; the plainer blue dinner 
set, for every-day use, with the big apples on the litde 
trees, the blue islands in a white sea, the man or woman 
that was always going over that short bridge, but 
stopped and stood provokingly in the middle — ^how 
they all come back to you! But I "lay" you have 
forgotten the bandboxes. Think of that again! 
Bandboxes have fled away from the face of this earth, 
but not to heaven; for they were much uglier than any 
sin I'm acquainted with. I recall the very pattern of 
them — the red brick houses, with many windows, the 
clumsy trees, and that odd something, more like a pile 
of rocks than an elephant, but spouting clods of water, 
like an elephant who had got drunk on mud. 

Wlien you were a boy, did you sleep in a low-pitched, 
14 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

dormer-windowed room, with two little gable windows 
that looked out upon a narrow-necked chimney, just 
where the neck ended and the shoulder began ? You 
didn't? Then I pity you; you must have had a 
mighty poor sort of boyhood. Why, I can see the 
moss growing on that chimney, can see how very thick 
the old thing is at the bottom, and, by George! there is 
the identical old toad (frog, we call him) that pops 
out every night from the slit in the wall at the side of 
the chimney. How well he looks! hasn't changed a 
hair in forty years! Come! let's "ketch" some light- 
ning-bugs and feed him, right now. 

Surely, you hav'n't forgotten the rainy days at the 
old country house? How the drops kept dropping, 
dropping from the eaves, and popping, popping up 
from the little trough worn into the earth below the 
eaves; how draggled and miserable the rooster looked, 
as you watched him from your seat in the deep win- 
dow-sill; and how (tired of playing in-doors) you won- 
dered if it would never, never stop raining ? How you 
wandered from room to room, all over the house, up 
stairs and down stairs, eating cakes and apples, or 
buttered bread and raspberry jam; how at last you 
settled down in the old lady's chamber and held a 
hank till your arms ached, and you longed for bedtime 
to come ? If you have never known such days, never 
seen the reel the hanks were placed on, nor the flax- 
wheels that clacked when the time came to stop wind- 
ing, then you have neither seen nor known anything. 
You don't know how to "skin the cat," or to play 
"Ant'ny over"; you don't know how to drop a live 
15 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

coal in a little puddle of water, and explode it with an 
axe; you "don't know nothin' " — ^you have never been 
a Virginia boy. 

Yes, your arms ached, poor little fellow, pining for 
out-door fun; they were sure to ache if you held the 
hank for Miss Mehaly Sidebottom, the poor lady who 
had lived in the family time out o' mind; but if you 
held it for a pretty girl — and what Virginia gentleman's 
house was without one — two — three — half a dozen of 
them? — then your arms didn't give out half so soon, 
and you didn't know what it was to get hungry or 
sleepy. When you grew older, a rainy day in the 
country was worth untold money, for then you had 
the pretty girl all to yourself the livelong day in the 
drawing-room. What music the rain made on the 
roof at night, and how you wished the long season in 
May would set in, raise all the creeks past fording, 
wash away all the bridges, and keep you there forever. 

And such girls! They were of a piece with the dear 
old house; they belonged to it of right, and it would 
not, and it could not, have been what it was without 
them. Finer women, physically, I may have seen, 
with much more bone, a deal more of muscle, and 
redder cheeks; but more grace, more elegance, more 
refinement, more guileless purity, were never found 
the whole world over, in any age, not even that of 
the halcyon. There was about these country girls— 
I mean no disparagement of their city sisters, for all 
Virginia girls were city girls in winter and country 
girls in summer, so happy was our peculiar social sys- 
tem—there was about these country girls I know not 
16 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

what of sauce — the word is a little too strong — of 
mischief, of spirit, of fire, of archness, coquetry, and 
bright winsomeness — tendrils these of a stock that was 
strong and true as heart could wish or nature frame; 
for in essentials their character was based upon a con- 
fiding, trusting, loving, unselfish devotion — a complete, 
immaculate world of womanly virtue and home piety 
was theirs, the like of which, I boldly claim, was seldom 
approached, and never excelled, since the Almighty 
made man in his own image. 

What matter if it rained or shone, so you spent 
your time with girls like these? And if one of them 
chanced to be a cousin — everybody has cousins — then 
there was no help for you; literally none — 

"Did you ever have a cousin, Tom? 
And did that cousin sing? 
Sisters we've had by the dozen, Tom — 
But a cousin's a different thing!" 

I believe you. A cousin, a real female cousin, I 
take to be the invention of the de'il himself — his pet 
bit of ingenuity. She makes you all but crazy to 
marry her, then she won't marry you, never had the 
remotest idea of marrying you (says so anyhow), and 
you know you oughtn't to marry her even if she were 
willing; and — where are you ? There's not a man of 
us who has not been robbed of his senses by one or 
more of these beautiful witches, not one of us who does 
not recall the time when 

" Half dying with love, 
We ate up her glove 
And drank our champagne from her shoe!" 

17 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

And a little "teenchy" bit of a shoe it was, too — 
white kid. She never knew who stole it, and you have 
had it hid away these twenty years, although you are 
married. I know you, sir. 

Are there any such girls nowadays, I wonder? I 
trust so, indeed. The archness and coquetry in the 
girls of whom I have been speaking were but charming 
arabesques upon Damascus steel, metal of proof, whose 
mortal sharpness, bitter and keen, he was sure to feel, 
and quickly too, who dared to come too near. But 
since the war, I am told, a change has come to pass, 
and approaches, impossible in purer days, are allowed. 
Is it so? Then are we lost indeed! It cannot be so; 
but if it be so in part only, who is to blame ? Are not 
you, young gentleman ? Hold off, sir; stand back, I 
say; lay not so much as a finger-tip lightly upon her, 
for she is sacred. If she be not yours, she is your 
brother's; and if your own, will you harm ever so lit- 
tle her whom you intend to make your wife? Oh! 
wait, do but wait. In the hallowed stillness of your 
bridal eve, ere the guests have all assembled, lift up to 
yours the fair pale face, love's perfect image, and you 
shall see that vision to which God our Father vouch- 
safes no equal this side the jasper throne — you shall 
see the ineffable eyes of innocence entrusting to you, 
unworthy, oh! so unworthy, her destiny through time 
and eternity. Inhale the perfume of her breath and 
hair, that puts the violets of the wood to shame; press 
your first kiss (for now she is all your own), your first 
kiss upon the trembling petals of her lips, and you 
shall hear, with ears you knew not that you had, the 
18 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

silver chiming of your wedding bells far, far up in 
heaven. 

As were the girls, so was their mother; only of a 
type, if possible, still higher; for I can but think that, 
since the Colonial and Revolutionary days, each gen- 
eration has shown a slight falling away from those 
grand models of men and women who really existed in 
Virginia, but whom we have come to look upon almost 
as myths. That the mother was lovelier or more lov- 
able than her daughters, I will not say. That she was 
purer, tenderer, truer, sweeter, I will not say; but 
certainly there was about her a dignity, a repose, an 
impressiveness — at all events, a something that one 
missed in the beautiful maidens who grew up around 
her. Perhaps it was the effect of age. I know not; 
but I do know that, in some respects, her daughters 
were not quite equal to her. 

Words fail to tell what the Virginia lady of the best 
type was. During the first decade of her married 
life, a part of each recurring winter was passed at the 
State capital or in Washington, and a part of each 
summer at the springs; she was at that time no stranger 
to the great cities and seasides of the North; and, in 
some instances (though these, to speak the truth, were 
very rare), she had travelled abroad, and knew the 
delights of European capitals. But now, for many 
years, her whole life had been spent at home. She 
was much too busy to leave it. The bodily and spirit- 
ual welfare of too many human beings depended upon 
her gentle presence, her beneficent guidance, to per- 
mit more than the briefest visit, once a year, to her 
19 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

aged parents. Retaining the grace, and, to some ex- 
tent, the ease of manner, characteristic of her class and 
pecuHarly her own in early womanhood, whilst moving 
in the brilliant throngs of cities and watering-places, 
and accustomed, as she had ever been, to receive and 
entertain the best people of her own and other States, 
there had nevertheless crept over her, in consequence, 
no doubt, of her long seclusion, an almost girlish shy- 
ness, a maidenly timidity, a litde uncertainty as to her- 
self, an absence of readiness and aplomb, which were in- 
expressibly beautiful. The ways of the great world had 
ceased, long ago, to be her ways. She lived in a little 
world of her own. She cared not to keep pace with 
the fast-changing fashions, which, to her pure mind, 
were not always for the better. Her manner was not, 
in the usual sense, high-bred; for hers was the highest 
breeding, and she had no manner. But her welcome 
as you entered her door, and her greeting, meet her 
when you might, on the endless round of her duties, 
in-doors or out, was as simple and genial as sunshine, 
and as sweet as spring water. Full well she knew the 
seriousness of life. Over and over the cares and re- 
sponsibilities of her station, as the mother of so many 
children, the mistress of so many servants, and the 
hostess of so many guests, had utterly overwhelmed 
her. Again and again had she been willing, nay glad 
— were it God's pleasure — to lay down the burthen 
that was too heavy for poor human nature to bear. 
To her own sorrows she added the sorrows of her 
friends, her neighbors, her dependents. Into how 
many negro cabins had she not gone, when the night 
20 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

was far spent and the lamp of life flickered low in the 
breast of the dying slave! How often she ministered 
to him with her own hands! Thin hands, wasted 
with overwork — ^for she disdained no labor, manual 
or mental — I can see them now! Nay, had she not 
knelt by his lowly bed and poured out her heart to 
God as his soul winged its flight, and closed his glazed 
and staring eyes as the day was dawning? yet the 
morning meal found her at her accustomed seat, tran- 
quil and helpful, and no one but her husband the wiser 
for her night's ministrations. What poor woman for 
miles around knew not the brightness of her coming? 
Some of her own children had been taken from her — 
that deep anguish! she knew it all — and the children 
of her neighbors, even the humblest, had died in her 
lap; herself had washed and shrouded them. To feed, 
to clothe, to teach, to guide, to comfort, to nurse, to 
provide for and to watch over a great household and 
keep its complex machinery in noiseless order — these 
were the woman's rights which she asserted, and there 
was no one to dispute; this was her mission, and none 
ever dared to question it. Mother, mistress, instructor, 
counsellor, benefactress, friend, angel of the sick-room! 
if ever I am tempted to call down the fire of divine 
wrath, it is upon the head of those (there have been 
such, incredible as it may seem), who have wilfully 
and persistently misrepresented this best and purest of 
God's creatures as the luxurious, idle, cruel, and tyran- 
nical favorite of some Eastern harem. The arch-fiend 
himself could not have originated a slander more gross, 
more infinitely and detestably foul. 
21 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

My rambles before the war made me the guest of 
Virginians of all grades. Brightest by far of the mem- 
ories of those days, that seem to have been passed in 
some other planet, is that of the Virginia mother, as I 
have so often seen her, in the midst of her tall sons 
and blooming daughters. Her delicacy, tenderness, 
freshness, gentleness; the absolute purity of her life 
and thought, typified in the spotless neatness of her 
apparel and her every surrounding, it is quite impossi- 
ble to convey. Withal, there was about her a naivete 
mingled with sadness, that gave her a surpassing 
charm. Her light blush, easily called up when her 
children rallied her, as they habitually would, about 
her old-fashioned ways and her ignorance of the world, 
was something never to be forgotten. Sunlight, flush- 
ing with faint rose-tints the driven snow, could scarcely 
more excite the rapture of admiration. Her pride in 
her sons, her delight in her daughters, her lowliness 
and her humility — for she was least among them all, 
and they were as yet too young and full of bounding 
life to revere and worship her as she deserved — who 
shall, who can fitly tell of these things? 

When I think of the days that will come no more, I 
sometimes pass my hand quickly across my eyes, as 
one who wishes to brush away a vision, not because it 
is unpleasing, but simply because it is unreal. And 
in the solitude of my room I sometimes ask myself 
aloud, "Was this actually so? Did I live in those 
days? Isn't it a dream? Did I ever know such 
women? Is there not some mirage, some rosy but 
false light, thrown ' upon the picture as it appears in 
22 



I 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

memory? It is very, very beautiful; but is it not of 
the fancy merely ? " 

No! blessed be the Giver of every good and perfect 
gift, the picture is not imaginary. It is real. These 
women lived. The most of us who are bearded men 
have seen them and talked with them; and some of 
you (alas! I am not of your number) remember with 
trembling and with tears that, long, long years ago, 
by the embers and low flames fluttering in the nursery 
fireplace, you knelt at the feet of such a woman, and 
while her soft hand rested on your head, said the litde 
prayer her pure lips had taught you to pray. You 
called her mother. She was your mother. 

How did these Virginia mothers and housekeepers 
manage to put things in order and keep them so ex- 
quisitely clean? That was always a mystery to me. 
"Servants," you say. Oh! yes! servants of course; 
but when servants have so many things to do, how is 
it that you never see them doing any one of them ? 
If you lay awake all night long, you would, in some 
vague daybreak hour, hear a peculiar humping, rum- 
bling noise, never heard north of the Susquehanna, 
which was occasioned, I am told, by a performance 
called "dry-rubbing," A graybeard Virginia boy told 
me only yesterday that riding on the scrubbing-brush, 
by squatting astraddle the brush and holding on to the 
long handle, was the best sort of fun. But by the time 
you got downstairs, nobody was to be seen, the floors 
were so slick that your neck was in danger, the silver 
candlestick, snuffers, and tray were spotless, so were 
the big brass andirons, so was the brass fender, and as 
23 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

for the door-knobs, why, you could see your face in 
them any time; and a comical, big-mouthed, narrow- 
foreheaded face it was, as every Virginia boy knows. 
Who did it? When? how? what for? I don't hke 
things so terrifically clean — do you ? One morning I 
did catch a girl coming out of the parlor with a bucket 
in her hand. She trembled like a guilty thing sur- 
prised, turned a little yellow, then blushed a reddish 
black, "curche'd," and said: 

"I jes' bin clayin' de h'ath, sir." 

What pleasure, what joy indeed, it was to visit a 
house over which one of these dear Virginia ladies 
presided! But what time of year was the best for your 
visit? Mortal man could never tell. There was the 
summer time, when you died daily of a surfeit of peaches 
and cream, and watermelons, tingling cold from the 
ice-house, all on top of your regular dinner; and some- 
how you never felt well enough to go bat-shooting with 
the boys about sundown, but did gather up strength 
enough to walk out with one of the girls, "it didn't 
matter which one," you said, and told a whopper 
when you said so. When night came, and the girls 
with their beaux were in the parlor, and the old gentle- 
man was talking politics with his friends in the front 
porch, your energy increased. Without a thought of 
fatigue, you strolled under the manorial oaks — alone? 
no, not altogether alone. The incessant chatter of the 
katydids, and the active vocal correspondence of the 
frogs in the mill-pond and the creeks, made it certain 
that whatever you had to say would be heard only 
by — ^yourself? Yes, oh! yes. The drowsy tinkle of 
24 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

the cow-bells in the "cup-pen" smote softly on your 
ear. The switching of the whippoorwill mingled with 
the ululations of the half-scared negro, trudging home- 
ward through the distant woods. Music from the open 
windows of the parlor, dipped in the perfume of flowers 
freshened by the night dews, lifted your soul into Elys- 
ium. But the voice of the lady in white, whose little 
hand rested on your arm, was sweeter than music and 
flowers combined. 

(If, in the beautiful vista of life that opened then 
before you, a panorama — not seen distinctly, but ap- 
prehended by some fine lover-sense, unknown to ordi- 
nary mortals — if in that entrancing vista, a panorama 
of a possible "plantation and negroes," superadded to 
the young lady in the simple lawn dress, presented itself 
to you, ah! how could you help it? and what poor, but 
handsome and aspiring, young man will blame you ? I 
certainly will not.) 

But it was too sweet to last You didn't want to go 
in, not you, if it was midnight; but she made you go. 
Then came the unrepose in the lavendered bed, with 
the night-wind murmuring through the locusts and 
aspens, and the starlight spilling down from heaven — 
where you cared not to go, yet awhile. No rest — ^for 
brain and heart were on fire with hopes and fears. No 
rest. The mocking-bird in the thorn-bush, for all his 
melody, was a nuisance; and that screech-owl in the 
old catalpa — how you would have liked to cut his 
throat, slowly, ever so slowly, with a dull case-knife! 
At last, consciousness melted away into the paradise of 
dreams, and you awoke in the morning to find your 
25 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

sweetheart fairer than the fleecy clouds and sweeter 
than the dew-washed roses. 

On some accounts, the winter was even better than 
the summer for a visit to the old Virginia gentleman's 
home. There were more sports, Christmas parties, 
sleigh-rides, etc., and a different order of eatables and 
drinkables. But you devoured your lady-love, oppo- 
site whom the cunning waiter was sure to seat you. 
She was fatter, plumper, rosier, arm-fuller, warmer, 
impudenter, more mischievous, harder to catch, mar- 
riageabler, exceedingly much more to be desired in 
marriage, and everything more delicious than before. 
After breakfast, and such a breakfast, a ride on horse- 
back was demanded by all the laws of digestion. Com- 
ing back at a flying gallop, she was apt to look some- 
thing very like "yes," and put whip to her steed. 
Then came a race. Fox-hunting was a fool to it! 
Rather than fail in finding out the full meaning of that 
look, you would have killed the last one of her father's 
blooded horses. And when you caught up, oh! misery 
— the slippery minx had no aflSrmative for you, and you 
were "Mr. Impudence" for your pains. During the 
dance at night, she would give you, once an hour, a 
glance that was worth a king's ransom, and for the 
ensuing fifty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds was 
anybody's, everybody else's but yours. When the 
dancing was all over, and you had lingered at the foot 
of the staircase until you had well-nigh disgraced your- 
self, she would bid you good-night in tones that melted 
the very soul within you, dazzle you with her parting 
smile, and with the least litde bit of a pressure of her 
26 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

tiny hand — "just enough to last you till morning," — 
dart upstairs like a meteor. 

The house was so full of company that you were sent 
out to the "office" in the yard, to stay with the boys. 
Time was when you asked nothing better; now, it 
was pure torture. The gabble of brothers and cousins 
about horses, dogs, guns, duels, "old Soc," "old 
Gess," "Scheie," "Math," getting "pitched," and the 
deuce knows what, disgusted and maddened you. 
You wanted to be alone with your celestial thoughts, 
and they wanted you to play euchre and drink whiskey- 
punch or apple-toddy. Idiots! You consigned them 
all, without scruple, to the bottom of the pit that has 
no bottom. 

Ah me! those were days of the gods. Ask any man 
here of five and forty or fifty if they were not. Are 
there any such country homes left in Virginia? Is 
there even one such home? And do they have such 
delights in them now? I know not — I know not. I 
have outlived my time. 

Carried away by recollections of the sweethearts of 
other days, the most of whom are grandmothers now, I 
seem to have forgotten the old Virginia gentleman 
himself. But I have not. It was necessary to give 
his surroundings. The large estate, the commodious 
house, the gentle wife, the sons and daughters, are but 
accessories of the principal figure. How shall I draw 
that true to nature ? The popular idea of the old Vir- 
ginia gendeman, even in our own minds, is about as 
correct as that of the typical Yankee, in bell-crown hat, 
27 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

swallow-tail coat, striped breeches, and short waistcoat. 
"Porte Crayon" has a picture of the old gentleman in 
"Virginia Illustrated"; Kennedy, in the "Swallow 
Barn," gives us another; and Elder in an admirable 
unfinished sketch of a country court-day in Virginia, 
furnishes a third. All agree in representing him as a 
stout, bluff, hearty, jovial old fellow, fond of juleps, 
horse-races, and "a litde game of draw." This, to be 
sure, is one kind of Virginian, but not the typical kind, 
and by no means my ideal of an old Virginia gentleman. 
The truth is, there are several types, of which I distin- 
guish five as more clearly marked than any others, viz.: 

I. The one above given by Elder, Strother, and 
Kennedy. 

II. A small, thin, sharp-featured, black-eyed, 
swarthy man; passionate, fiery indeed in temper; keen 
for any sort of discussion; profane, but swearing natu- 
rally and at times delightfully; hot, quick, bitter as 
death; magnanimous, but utterly implacable — a red 
Indian imprisoned in the fragile body of a consumptive 
old Roman. 

III. A broad, solid, large-headed, large-faced, 
heavy, actually fat, deeply pious old gentleman — beam- 
ing with benevolence, the soul (and body, too!) of hos- 
pitality and kindness, simple as a child, absent-minded, 
unpractical to the last degree, and yet prosperous, 
because God just loves him — a dear, big, old father to 
everybody. 

IV. A refined, scrupulously neat, carefully dressed, 
high-toned, proud, exclusive man; courteous, but some- 
what cold; a judge of rare old wines and a lover of 

28 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

them; a scholarly but dry and ungenial intellect; 
regardful of manners, a stickler for forms and social 
distinctions; fond of ancient customs, observances, and 
fashions, even to the cut of his clothes, which he would 
fain have made colonial; an aristocrat, born and bred, 
and never quite unconscious of the fact; a high type, 
one that commanded more of respect than love, but not, 
I think, the highest type. 

V. Last and best comes the Virginian, less fiery 
than the old Roman-Indian, but of spirit quite as high; 
as courteous every whit as the aristocrat just named, 
but not so mannered; in culture not inferior to either, 
and adding thereto a gentleness almost feminine, and 
a humility born only, as my experience teaches, of a 
devout Christian spirit; a lover of children with his 
whole heart, and idolized by them in turn; knightly in 
his regard for womankind, in the lowest fully as much 
as in the highest sphere; — in a word, as nearly perfect 
as human infirmity permits man to be. An old gentle- 
man of Maryland, himself a fine specimen of an ad- 
mirable class, told me that what impressed him most in 
the Virginia gentlemen whom he met at the Springs 
and elsewhere, but more especially those who lived 
nearest him in the Northern Neck, was a humility 
amounting almost to forgetfulness of self, and yet joined 
to so perfect a knowledge of human worth that they 
could not and would not for an instant brook in others 
any disregard of those claims of simple manhood which 
instinct alone, and quite apart from education or social 
advantage, suffices thoroughly to teach. 

In our college presidents and professors, our judges, 
29 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

senators, and other dignitaries, this lack of all pre- 
tence, and even of self-assertion, amounted, I have 
sometimes thought, to a fault. But better this, far 
better, when back of it lay all proper pride and personal 
courage, than the starchy vanity and conceit of priggish 
dons in other quarters of the globe. 

It cannot be said that the last of the five classes just 
given is the typical Virginian. He, indeed, must be 
found by combining the separate types; but we have 
all seen specimens of this best class — few counties but 
contained one or more of them — and we do know that 
higher, nobler men never lived on earth. 

No; to me the strangest possible of mistakes is to 
reckon the broad-waisted, jovial, rollicking English 
squire as the true Virginia type. The richest and most 
varied growths do not come out of cold white clay, but 
out of dark warm mould; and in the depths of the 
Virginia character there was ever a stratum of grave 
thought and feeling that not seldom sank into sadness 
and even gloom. 

How could it be otherwise? Whether he lived on 
the banks of the great tidal rivers, and from his porches 
and windows was wont to watch the trees, faint and 
spectral, standing on the distant points far across the 
waves, with here and there a tired sail wandering 
away into the underworld, as if nevermore to return; 
or from his quiet home upon the hills of Piedmont 
saw, day after day from childhood, the mighty ridge, 
a rampart of Cyclopean steel, throwni all athwart the 
sky and fading in misty fire at the portals of the setting 
sun; or in the great valley beheld himself in an earthly 
30 



THE OLD 
VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

AND OTHER SKETCHES 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

paradise, shut in between battlements built by the gods; 
or in the heart of the AUeghanies felt his young soul 
awed by the huge mountain forms, sphinxes as silent 
and much more vast than that of Egypt; live wherever 
he might in Virginia, the breadth and grandeur of 
these aspects of nature imparted their solemnity to 
him. His spirit was attuned from infancy to the moan- 
ing of the pines and the sea-like murmur of the wind in 
the forests around him; the desolation and barrenness 
of some of his neighbors' fields, wasted by bad tillage, 
left their impress upon him; insensibly his mind took 
the sombre coloring of these surroundings, and, how- 
ever gay he might be at times, the warp of his life was 
always grave. 

The profound sense of responsibility to his Maker 
added to this gravity. As husband, father, master, he 
felt to the full the weight of human duty. But high 
above them all rose his Roman sense of civic obliga- 
tion. Civis Americanus sum had in his day a meaning 
which seems lost in these later times. That meaning 
never left him. He could not forget it, and what is 
more, he did not want to. Often the presiding magis- 
trate of his county; often, too, its representative in the 
legislature or in congress, he continued to direct its 
politics long after he ceased to take active part in them. 
His interest in public affairs abated only with his breath. 
In addition to the many cares that grew out of this 
interest were the scarcely less heavy anxieties that 
pressed upon him as the friend, the counsellor, the 
fiduciary, the referee, and the arbitrator in the troubles 
and differences of opinion among his neighbors. His 
31 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

old escritoire or secretary was full of wills, deeds, notes 
of hand, and settlements of every kind. The widow 
and the orphan turned at once to him in all their trials. 
He never failed them — never. 

His reading helped largely to increase the gravity 
due to all the trusts just named. The Federalist and 
other writings of Madison, the works of George Mason, 
Jefferson, and Calhoun, Elliott's Debates, the Greek 
and especially the Roman historians, the Letters of 
Junius and the speeches of Burke, made up the bulk 
of his library, and fed his mind with thoughts of that 
deepest and saddest of all problems — human govern- 
ment. If his neglect of scientific studies was, as I 
once held, simply shameful, it was, I am now willing 
and glad to believe, because science had not done in 
his day what indeed it has even now but imperfectly 
done — found its true objective in questions of govern- 
ment — the one paramount, underlying, and absorbing 
interest of the Virginian's life. His place on the border, 
in immediate sight of the national capital, the centre 
of power, would not permit him to forget the boding 
prophecies of Henry anterior to the adoption of the 
Constitution. In his ears rang ever the hollow murmur 
of that "fire-bell in the night" that affrighted the 
philosopher of Monticello. If, jealously guarding the 
only charter of rights left to him as a part of an ever- 
weakening minority, he insisted upon strict construc- 
tions, not of the letter only, but of the spirit of the 
organic law, and that were a fault, it was a fault from 
which there was no escape short of absolute surrender 
of his own liberty and that of the American people. 
32 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

His nice distinctions were drawn in defence of truth, 
of justice, of the good of the whole Union, nay, of all 
mankind; and he did well to split hairs when but a 
hair stood between him and degradation. 

Could he for a moment fail to remember that the 
moral of the American Revolution, its sole value and 
excuse, was the right (supposed to have been achieved 
after ages of strife) of self-government, the remem- 
brance was forced back upon him by continued as- 
saults upon his character, his property, and all he held 
dear, by a horde of enemies ever increasing in numbers 
and bitterness. Yet it is contended by those who, 
pandering to the evil spirit of the hour, are more un- 
willing than unable to take in the full scope of this still 
important argument, that in grasping at shadows the 
Virginian lost the substance of power, and gave up for 
metaphysics a prosperity he might easily have retained. 
I deny it utterly. 

Conceding for the moment that there can be lasting 
prosperity without good government, I point to the 
map. The configuration of the American continent, 
the north-eastward trend of the Atlantic coast, and the 
course of the Gulf Stream, which still carries the steam- 
ship in the very path of the sailing vessel, were not 
of the Virginian's making. Climate and soil, which 
made manufactures a necessity in New England, made 
agriculture a luxury to the Virginian. Yet he tried 
manufactures. How exceeding wise are the sons of 
to-day who twit their fathers with not having done this! 
Over and again the Virginian tried them, and over again 
was he crushed by associated capital. Immigration, 
33 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

determined in part by latitude and isotherms, but 
rigorously by proximity, ease and rapidity of access, 
the Virginian could no more control than he could con- 
trol the motions of the heavenly bodies, yet despite im- 
migration, dense population, and concentrated wealth, 
despite tariffs and protective laws devised for his ruin, 
he and his brethren of the South at the outbreaking of 
the late war were richer far, man for man, than their 
fellows of the North. Property was more evenly dis- 
tributed, crime and pauperism were almost unknown, 
jails were empty, poor-houses empty, beggars were 
wonders, and social elevation, large areas considered, 
was incomparably superior. An old song, this. Yes, 
but it needs repeating when a Virginian declares that 
the Virginians of his own day lack "public spirit." 
Masterly as the oration at Randolph Macon undoubt- 
edly was, and much needed as was the rebuke then 
administered to our overweening self-esteem, some- 
thing may be said on the other side. Indeed, the 
very highest proof ever given of the large and gen- 
erous spirit of Virginians was the burst of applause 
that everywhere greeted an accusation which, coming 
from a son less tried and proven by the fire of battle, 
might well have been accounted abuse and almost 
slander. 

Virginians wanting in public spirit? 'Tis a new 
accusation indeed. Wliy, the cuckoo cry of the North 
for half a century has been that the Virginian devoted 
his time to politics, to the utter neglect of his private 
affairs. Well I know, and so does he, what manner of 
spirit it was that fired Virginia in 1860, but 'tis not of 
34 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

that he speaks. Perhaps he means that, engrossed in 
self-admiration, our narrow sympathies would not per- 
mit us to love, I will not say the Yankees, but the Amer- 
ican people. In my soul, I think the Virginian loved 
them better than they loved themselves; for he who 
truly loves liberty loves truly and to purpose all man- 
kind. Is it public improvements that he means? 
Possibly, for public spirit and running in debt — hasten- 
ing a premature and unstable civilization — seem to be 
synonymous nowadays. Well, then, I will take the 
forty millions, spent much against the old Virginia gen- 
tleman's will, in railroads and canals, that have brought 
the State to the verge of bankruptcy and repudiation, 
when a tithe of that sum expended, in maintenance of 
his faith, upon a well-devised system of county roads 
would have made ours the happiest and most solvent 
commonwealth in the South, if not in all the land. 
What call you that ? Fealty to the first great principle 
of our American form of government — the minimum of 
State interference and assistance in order to attain the 
maximum of individual development and endeavor — 
that was the Virginian's conception of public spirit, 
and, if our system be right, it is the right conception. 

Aye! but the Virginian made slavery the touchstone 
and the test in all things whatsoever. State or Federal. 
Truly he did, and why ? 

This button here upon my cuff is valueless, whether 
for use or for ornament, but you shall not tear it from 
me and spit in my face besides; no, not if it cost me 
my life. And if your time be passed in the attempt to 
so take it, then my time and my every thought shall be 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

spent in preventing such outrage. Let alone, the Vir- 
ginian would gladly have made an end of slavery, but, 
strange hap! malevolence and meddling bound it up 
with every interest that was dear to his heart — wife, 
home, honor — and by a sad providence it became the 
midmost boss, the very centre of that buckler of State 
rights which he held up against the worst of tyrants — 
a sectional majority. 

But a darker accusation yet remains. This also is 
a discovery — made since the war. It is charged that 
our fathers threw away a great estate, an empire in 
truth, and surrendered constitutional rights of inesti- 
mable value, not for love of our common country, for 
peace and brotherhood, but for what, think you ? 
Mark it well — for the sake of Federal ofBce, and that 
alone 1 Yes! this is the accusation brought by Virgin- 
ians against their fathers. No Yankee brings it. I 
never heard it till a Virginian of 1876 brought it. 
Though I may be excused for calling in question the 
motive of him who imputes such motives to others of 
his own flesh and blood, I will not do so. I will sum- 
mon history to bar, and ask her whether the Virginians 
who espoused New England's cause and perished amid 
the snows of Canada were office-seeking when they 
died ? And I will file in answer to this charge a single 
act of our Legislature in 1867, when Virginia, impover- 
ished and dissevered, assumed the entire indebtedness, 
principal and interest, of two States. Was that office- 
seeking? Was that the prompting of self-interest? 

Noble folly? Magnanimous stupidity? Nay, I 
reckon it rather the dying murmur, the last true beat 
36 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

of that great Virginia heart, whose generous and un- 
selfish pulse kept time to an exalted sense of duty. 

This doubtless was the weakness of the Virginia gen- 
deman of the olden time. It was not the weakness of 
a mean or grovelling spirit, or one in imitation of which 
the world will soon destroy itself. He was not wiser, 
he was not more learned, he was not more successful 
than other men. Wherein, then, lay his strength, and 
what was the secret of his influence over all this land ? 
I answer in one word — character. And what is meant 
by character? Courage? Yes; the courage of his 
opinions, and physical courage as well, for he had a 
Briton's faith in pluck. Pride of race? In a limited 
sense, yes. Honesty? The question is almost an 
insult. "Madam," said Judge John Robertson, when 
in Congress, to his wife, who asked him to frank a 
letter for her, "Madam, I am not a thief!" Love of 
truth? Yes; undying love of it. And more — ^what 
more ? A certain inherited something in the blood and 
bodily fibre that fused all these qualities and lifted 
them as steady concentrated light in a Pharos, so that 
the simple look of the man, the poise of his headj his 
very gait, betrayed the elevation of his nature. Therein 
lay his strength, before which wiser men, as the world 
runs, and far wealthier men bowed almost in homage. 
Character — character, fixed upon the immutable basis 
of honor, and a love of liberty unquenchable — that 
was the source of his power, and the whole of it. 

From the pale, defeated lips of Virginians, weak- 
ened by poverty, comes the sneer (we hear it too 
often nowadays), "Can honor set a leg?" No, truly; 
37 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

but dishonor can damn to everlasting infamy a human 
soul. 

But whatever its source, character, or what you will, 
the greatness of the Virginian in times past cannot be 
gainsaid; it is everywhere conceded. And yet this 
mediocre age, which sneers at honor, naturally enough 
decries greatness. Decries ? yea, denies its very exist- 
ence. "The individual withers, and the world is more 
and more." So much the worse for the world, were it 
true. They who looked Lee and Jackson in the face, 
and fought under them; they who have seen Bismarck 
and King William make Germany in the very teeth of 
its hostile Reichstag, believe it. How passing strange! 
String ciphers till the crack of doom, they count noth- 
ing. Cut out of the world's book the pages made 
lustrous by the words and deeds of great men, and the 
rest is blank. Myriads living in Africa for unnum- 
bered centuries have left no sign. But look at Greece; 
at only one of its States. Galton, in his able work on 
"Hereditary Genius," calls attention to the "magnificent 
breed of human animals" reared in a single century in 
Attica, enumerates fourteen of the greatest of them, 
and says, "We have no men to put by the side of Soc- 
rates and Phidias. The millions of all Europe, breed- 
ing for two thousand years, have never produced their 
equals. The population which produced these men 
amounted to 135,000 free males, born in the century 
named, 530-430 B. C." 

On the first day of December, 17^3, Patrick Henry 
made his speech in the Parsons' cause, and after the 
Convention of '29-'30 the giants no longer assembled in 
38 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

Virginia. I will put the breed of human animals reared 
in this interval, less than a century, out of a free male 
population not exceeding that of Attica, against any 
other ever produced in this world. I doubt if the Roman 
senate or the Athenian Areopagus ever at one time con- 
tained quite such a body of men as were gathered in 
our famous Convention, and I will say, with Galton, 
that we have not now, nor are we likely ever again to 
have, two such men as Washington and Jefferson. 

But, would you believe it, Jefferson is a plagiarist! 
a thief not only of words, but of ideas! He has no 
claim to originality — ^his thoughts, his very language, 
everything borrowed or stolen outright! That has been 
deliberately and publicly charged, not by men of the 
North, but by a Virginian. Well, let us see. 

"This new principle of so constituting a federal 
republic as to make it 'one nation as to foreign con- 
cerns, and to keep us distinct as to domestic ones,' 
was indicated as early as December, 1786, by Mr. 
Jefferson in a letter to Mr. Madison." That is an 
historical fact, testified to by Alex. H. Stephens. 

"It is the very greatest refinement in social policy 
to which any state of circumstances has ever given 
rise, or to which any age has ever given birth." That 
is the testimony of Lord Brougham. "It is a wholly 
novel thing, which may be considered a great discov- 
ery in modern political science, and for which there is 
even yet no specific name." That is the testimony 
of De Tocqueville. This will suffice. Jefferson's fame 
is firm-based as the pyramids; it cannot be shaken; 
and they who decry him do but belittle themselves. 
39 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

A soil is known by its crops, a tree by its fruit. 
Materials are tested by the strain they will bear; 
flowers give forth their sweets under compression, but 
yield their inmost virtues only to the torture of the cru- 
cible. The flowers and the fruitage of a land are its 
men. The test of men is the strain of war; the supreme 
test the torture of defeat. Virginians were tested in 
the War of the Revolution, again in 1812, again in 
Mexico, again in the great rebellion, so called, and yet 
again in the long torture of reconstruction. Where, I 
ask in the candor of a triumph so amazing that it 
almost humiliates, where are all the honors? Were 
these successive honors the result of chance ? Are the 
great names and the heroic deeds associated with these 
wars of no value ? There can be but one answer, and 
it is so complete it saddens me; for well I know — I 
think I know — the end has come. It has certainly 
come if, for the sake of present comfort, the Virginians 
of to-day are willing to forfeit these honors and to 
despise these names. What neither war nor defeat 
could effect, poverty, long continued, has accomplished 
— it has broken them down at last. I fear so, indeed. 

My friends, it is not I who say it; it is nature, it is 
God who says it — man, like all other organisms. Is sub- 
ject to his environment. Change the environment, he 
changes with it; destroy it, and he is destroyed. But 
'tis not the earth he treads nor the air he breathes that 
constitutes man's true environment; it is the social 
atmosphere that makes the man or mars him. Great 
minds, great hearts, noble spirits, are not fed on base 
thoughts and low ambitions; and if the glory of Vir- 
40 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

ginia in the past has been incontestably greater than 
that of all her sister States combined, it must be be- 
cause her sons inhaled at home a finer, purer air. Ask 
yourselves whether that atmosphere has changed or is 
changing, and frankly own all of good or ill that slavery 
involves. If it accompanied here, as in Greece, the 
development of a splendid breed of animals, say so; 
if it helped that development, say so fearlessly. For 
one, I say with confidence, that the abolition of slavery 
has so changed the environment of the Virginian that 
another and wholly different man must take his place. 
Will he be a better man? I do not know; I hope he 
may. Will he be worse? Time will tell. 

But whatever the Virginian may have been, the 
coldest envy and the meanest jealousy may look upon 
him now with complacency. If he were vain, his van- 
ity stands him now in little stead. If he were proud, 
his pride need wound you no longer. "No farther 
seek his virtues to disclose, or draw his frailties from 
their dread abode;" but come — 



Come listen to another song, 

Should make your heart beat high, 
Bring crimson to your forehead, 
And lustre to your eye. 
It is a tale of olden time, 

Of days long since gone by, 

And of a baron stout and bold 

As e'er wore sword on thigh, 

Like a brave Virginia gentleman 

All of the olden time. 

41 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 
II 

His castle was his country home 

Hard by the river James, 
Full two hundred servants dwelt around — 
He called them by their names; 
And life to them no hardship was, 

'Twas all things else I ween; 
They were the happiest peasantry 
This world has ever seen, 
Despite the Abolition chevaliers 
All of the Northern clime! 

Ill 

His father drew his trusty sword 
In Freedom's righteous cause, 
Among the gallant gentlemen 
Who made nor stop nor pause 
Till they had broken wide apart 

The British bolts and bars. 
And lifted up to Freedom's sky 
The standard of the stars. 
Like true rebellious gentlemen 
All of that manly time. 

IV 

He never owned a foreign rule, 

A master he would scorn; 
Trained in the Revolution's school, 
To Liberty was born! 

And when they asked him for his oath. 

He touched his war-worn blade. 
And pointed to his lapel gray. 
That bore the blue cockade! 
Like a straight-out States' Rights gentleman, 
All of that trying time. 
42 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 



And then the words rang through the land, 
"Coercion is to be!" 
"Coercion of the free?" 
That night the dreadful news was spread. 
From mountains to the sea; 

And our old Baron rose in might 

Like a lion from his den, 
And rode in haste across the hills 
To join the fighting men, 
Like a staunch Virginia gentleman. 
All of the olden time. 

VI 

He was the first to fire the gun 

When Sumter was assailed. 
He it was who life disdained 

When our Great Cause had failed. 
And ever in the van of fight 
The foremost still he trod. 
Until on Appomattox' height 
He gave his soul to God, 
Like a good Virginia gentleman, 
All of the olden time. 

vn 

Ah! never shall we know again 

A heart so stout and true; 
The olden times have passed away. 
And weary are the new. 
The fair white rose has faded 

From the garden where it grew, 
And no fond tears save those of heaven 
The glorious bed bedew 
Of the last Virginia gentleman 
All of the olden time! 
43 



THE OLD VIRGINIA GENTLEMAN 

Oh! good gray head of Arhngton! when thy great 
sore heart, that ever took unto itself all blame, burst 
behind the mute lips, and Rockbridge earth received 
the stateliest man of all our time, then indeed the last 
Virginia gentleman was laid to sleep in his mother's 
lap, and the heroic age of Virginia ended, "The 
spacious times of great Elizabeth" come not again; 
there is no second age of Pericles.* 

* Doubtless the picture here drawn of Virginia as she was is 
idealized. Purposely so. Not for a moment could any Virginian 
say that there was nothing amiss in the old order. Alas! there 
is much amiss in every structure, old or new. Educated at the 
North, I was perhaps more keenly alive to the defects of our sys- 
tem than almost any Virginian of my time. And so long as the 
good Commonwealth lived I did not fail to mix in every pane- 
gyric I wrote — and there were several — a full proportion of good- 
natured satire. If I have praised Virginia without stint, I have, 
in times past, ridiculed her unsparingly. But our Mother is 
dead, and much may be pardoned in a eulogy which would be 
inexcusable were the subject living. I ask no man's pardon for 
what must seem to a stranger a most exaggerated estimate of 
my State and its people. In simple truth and beyond question 
there was in our Virginia country life a beauty, a simplicity, a 
purity, an uprightness, a cordial and lavish hospitality, warmth 
and grace which shine in the lens of memory with a charm that 
passes all language at my command. It is gone with the social 
structure that gave it birth, and were I great, I would embalm 
it in the amber of such prose and verse as has not been written 
since John Milton laid down his pen. Only greatness can fitly 
do it. — Author's note. 



44 



n 

BACON AND GREENS 

TT is morning — clear, cold, sparkling — an autumn 
morning. Come with me into the garden. The 
frost lies heavy on the palings, and tips with silver the 
tops of the butter-bean poles, where the sere and yel- 
low pods are chattering in the chilly breeze. On yon- 
der fence hangs many a gourd, once green, but scabby 
now and nearly ripe. Across the walk, in that broad 
bed, "severial" paunchy "punkins" lie, half-awakened 
by the distant rooster's call. The lily and the rose, 
the tulip and the violet, the sunflower and the holly- 
hock are dead. Beautiful, but feeble, they have per- 
ished early; and the humming-birds and the bumble- 
bees and the Juney-bugs, which knew them once, shall 
know them no more forever. One flower alone sur- 
vives — a sturdy flower, that scorns Jack Frost — a re- 
markable flower, for it is at once a flower and a fruit, 
and it is all flower, and is its own bush and its own 
leaves. Let us reverently draw nigh unto it. Gods! 
what a bud! And see, alas! how its gigantic petals 
have been pecked by the turkeys! May we not vent- 
ure to touch the mighty bud! Heavens! 'tis not a 
bud — 'tis a head! Finer head Fowler the phrenolo- 
gist never felt. How crisp and cool, how firm, and full 
45 



BACON AND GREENS 

as it were of brains this head is! And what a peculiar 
whitey-greenish color, and what a still more peculiar 
sort of culinary odor! Surely we have smelt it before. 
Yes; this is the cabbage, sacred to tailors and to the 
Virginia dinner-table. 

Here the vegetable portion of our subject ends, and 
we approach that strange variety of mankind which is 
compounded of bacon on the one hand, and cabbage 
or greens on the other hand. In the wildest flight of 
imagination, who would ever have supposed that the 
savage boar of the German forests and the ugly pot- 
herb of the sea-cliffs of England would come together 
in the same dish to produce the Virginian ? So true it 
is that truth is stranger than fiction. I say, the Vir- 
ginian; for while other people eat bacon and greens 
(and thereby become very decent people indeed), the 
only perfect bacon and the only perfect greens are 
found in Virginia; and hence it follows, as the night 
the day, not that the Virginians are the only perfect 
people, but that they are a peculiar and a very remark- 
able people. 

In point of fact, the native Virginian is different 
from all other folks whatsoever, and the difference 
between him and other folks is precisely the difference 
between his bacon and greens and other folks' bacon 
and greens. How great this difference is, you are by 
no means aware. There is a theory in the books that 
the superiority of the Westphalia and Virginia bacon 
over all other bacon is due to the fact that our hogs are 
not penned up, but are allowed the free range of the 
fields and forests. 

46 



BACON AND GREENS 

Nevertheless, you are not to infer that the Virginian 
is composed of equal parts of bacon and greens, and 
that he is, in point of fact, a saphead and a glutton. 
Such a conclusion would not only be unkind, but 
illogical. Drinking train-oil does not necessarily turn 
a man into an Eskimo, nor does the eating of curry 
compel one to become a coolie and worship Vishnu 
or Confucius. Still, there is a connection between 
diet and the ethnological characteristics of the human 
races; and I take it for granted, first, that a Virginian 
could not be a Virginian without bacon and greens; 
and, second, that in every Virginian traces of bacon 
and traces of greens are distinctly perceptible. How 
else are you to account for the Virginia love of good 
eating, the Virginia indifference to dress and house- 
hold economy, and the incurable simplicity of the Vir- 
ginia head? It has been affirmed by certain specu- 
lative philosophers that the Virginian persists in ex- 
hausting his soil with tobacco, because the cabbage he 
eats is itself an exhauster of the soil, and that, because 
the hog is fond of wallowing in mud-puddles, therefore 
the Virginian takes naturally to politics. 

I am not prepared to dispute these points, but I am 
tolerably certain that a few other things besides bacon 
and greens are required to make a true Virginian. He 
must, of course, begin on pot-liquor, and keep it up 
until he sheds his milk-teeth. He must have fried 
chicken, stewed chicken, broiled chicken, and chicken 
pie; old hare, butter-beans, new potatoes, squirrel, 
cymlings, snaps, barbecued shoat, roas'n ears, butter- 
milk, hoe-cake, ash-cake, pancake, fritters, pot-pic. 
47 



BACON AND GREENS 

tomatoes, sweet-potatoes, June apples, waffles, sweet 
milk, parsnips, artichokes, carrots, cracklin bread, 
hominy, bonny-clabber, scrambled eggs, gooba-peas, 
fried apples, pop-corn, persimmon beer, apple-bread, 
milk and peaches, mutton stew, dewberries, batter- 
cakes, mushmelons, hickory nuts, partridges, honey in 
the honey-comb, snappin'-turtle eggs, damson tarts, 
catfish, cider, hot light-bread, and cornfield peas all 
the time; but he must not intermit his bacon and 
greens. 

He must butt heads with little negroes, get the worst 
of it, and run crying to tell his ma about it. Wear 
white yarn socks with green toes and yarn gallowses. 
Get the cow-itch, and live on milk and brimstone for 
a time. Make frog-houses over his feet in the wet 
sand, and find woodpecker nests. Meddle with the 
negro men at hog-killing time, and be in everybody's 
way generally. Upset beehives, bring big wasp-nests 
into the house, and get stung over the eye by a yellow- 
jacket. Watch setting turkeys, and own a bench-leg 
fice and a speckled shoat. Wade in the branch, eat 
too many black-heart cherries, try to tame a catbird, 
call doodle-bugs out of their holes — and keep on eating 
bacon and greens. 

He must make partridge-traps out of tobacco-sticks; 
set gums for " Mollie-cotton-tails," mash-traps and 
deadfalls for minks; fish for minnows with a pin-hook, 
and carry his worms in a cymling; tie Juney-bugs to 
strings, and sing 'em under people's noses; stump his 
toe and have it tied up in a rag; wear patched breeches, 
stick thorns in his heel, and split his thumb open slicing 



BACON AND GEEENS 

"hoss-cakes" with a dog-knife sharpened, contrary to 
orders, on the grindstone. 

At eight years old he must know how to spell b a ba, 
b e be, and so on; and be abused for not learning his 
multiplication table, for riding the sorrel mare at a strain 
to the horse-pond, and for snoring regularly at family 
prayers. Still he must continue to eat bacon and greens. 
About this time of life, or a little later, he must get his 
first suit of store clothes, and be sorely afflicted with 
freckles, stone-bruises, hang-nails, mumps, and warts, 
which last he delights in trimming with a Barlow-knife, 
obtained by dint of hard swapping. He must now go 
to old-field school, and carry his snack in a tin bucket, 
with a little bottle of molasses, stopped with a corn-cob 
stopper, and learn how to play marbles for good, and 
to tell stories about getting late to school — because he 
fell in the branch. Also to steal June apples and bury 
them, that they may ripen the sooner for his big sweet- 
heart, who sits next to him. He must have a pop-gun, 
made of elder, with plenty of tow to "chaw" for wads; 
also plenty of india-rubber, and cut up his father's 
gum shoes, to make trap-balls, composed of equal parts 
of yarn and india-rubber. At the same time he must 
keep steadily eating bacon and greens. He must now 
learn to cut jackets, play hard-ball, choose partners for 
cat and chermany, be kept in, fight every other day, 
and be turned out for painting his face with pokeberry 
juice and grinning at the school-master. 

After a good whipping from his father, who threatens 
to apprentice him to a carpenter, he enjoys his holiday 
by breaking colts and shooting field-larks in the daytime 
49 



BACON AND GREENS 

and by possum-hunting or listening to ghost-stories from 
the negroes in the night. 

Returning to school, he studies pretty well for a 
time; but the love of mischief is so strong within him 
that, for his life, he can't refrain from putting crooked 
pins on the benches where the little boys sit, and even 
in the school-master's chair. The result is a severe 
battle with the school-master and his permanent dis- 
missal. 

Thrown upon the world, he consoles himself with 
bacon and greens, makes love to a number of pretty 
girls, and pretends to play overseer. Failing at that, 
he tries to keep somebody's country store, but will 
close the doors whenever the weather is fine to "ketch 
chub" or play knucks. 

Tired of store-keeping, he makes a trip, sometimes 
all the way on horseback, to the Far South, to look 
after his father's lands. Plays "poker" on the Mis- 
sissippi, gets cheated, gets "strapped"; returns home, 
eats bacon and greens, and determines to be a better 
man. But the first thing he knows he is oflF on a frolic 
in Richmond, where he loses all his money at faro, 
borrows enough to carry him home and buy a suit to 
go courting in. 

He next gets religion at a camp-meeting, and loses 
it at a barbecue or fish-fry. Then he thinks he will 
teach school, or ride deputy sherifiF, or write in the 
clerk's office, and actually begins to study law; on the 
strength of which he becomes engaged to be married, 
and runs for the legislature. Gets beaten, gets drunk; 
reforms, all of a sudden; eats plenty of bacon and 
50 



BACON AND GREENS 

greens; marries — much to the satisfaction of his own, 
and greatly to the horror of his wife's family — and 
thus becomes a thorough-going Virginian. 

His name, for the most part, is Jeems — Jeems 
Jimmison. Sometimes it is rather a homely name, 
as, for example, Larkin Peasley. Occasionally it is 
a pretty and even a romantic name, as for instance, 
Conrad, or, to speak properly, Coonrod — Coonrod 
Higginbottom. 

Being a married man, it is incumbent on Coonrod 
to settle down in life; and to this end he selects, with 
unerring accuracy, a piece of the poorest "hennest" 
grass-land in his native county. The traveller enters 
this domain through a rickety "big-gate," partly up- 
held by mighty posts, which remind him of the dru- 
idical remains at Stonehenge. The road leads appar- 
ently nowhere, through thickets of old-field pine and 
scrub-oak. Here and there is an opening in the woods, 
with a lonely, crank-sided tobacco-house in the midst, 
looking as if it were waiting resignedly for the end 
of the world to come. He hears the crows cawing, 
the woodpeckers tapping, and the log-cocks drumming, 
but sees no human being. Far away the roosters are 
crowing, and perhaps the scream of the peacock is 
heard. Slowly sailing, white-billed buzzards eye him 
from on high and make him nervous. Over the trees, 
he can't tell where exactly, come the voices of the 
ploughers — "Gee," "Wo-haw," "Git up." He rides 
in the direction of the sound, but finds nobody. Anon 
he encounters an ox-cart, which turns aside for him. 
"Wo, Lamb!" "Come here, Darlin'!" "Back, Buck!" 
51 



BACON AND GREENS 

"Back! I tell you." The driver touches his hat and 
says, "Sarvunt, marster," but is too busy with his 
steers to give any directions. And, when his pa- 
tience is fairly exhausted by a succession of dilapidated 
gates, tied up with grapevines, and complicated draw- 
bars, which compel him to get down from his horse 
and fill his hands with turpentine (for Larkin's negroes 
won't half skin the poles which make the drawbars) — 
when the traveller is thus bewildered and exhausted, 
and half tempted to turn back, he is suddenly relieved 
by an ebony apparition, resembling somewhat a kan- 
garoo, clad in a solitary, mud-colored cotton garment, 
split up to the arm-pit on one side, and dexterously 
kept in position by a peculiar upward twist of the 
shoulder on the other side. This black-legged little 
spectre pops out of a gully, where he has been qui- 
etly eating dirt, darts over the broom-straw, knocks 
down the mullein stalks, crashes through the sassafras 
clump, "sheets" through the brier patch, shoots around 
the plum bushes and up the lane, under the morillo 
cherry-trees, disappears behind the fodder and straw 
stacks, winds in between the stable, corn-houses, hen- 
houses, the dairy, the smoke-house, and the kitchen; 
and so, like a veritable Jack-o'-lantern, with a nappy 
head, that resembles a diseased chestnut burr or part 
of the top of an old hair trunk, leads you up to the 
house itself. 

There the native Virginian, with a Powhatan pipe 

in his mouth and a silver spectacle-^case in his hand, 

awaits you, and asks you to "light" and "come in" 

in the same breath. While a negro boy is running 

52 



BACON AND GREENS 

up from the "new ground" to take your horse, a 
mulatto girl is flying, with a pail on her head, to the 
spring for fresh water and a jug of milk. Two or 
three little negroes are chasing the chickens whose 
necks are soon to be twisted or chopped off with an 
axe at the wood-pile; ham is being sliced, eggs are 
frying in the frying-pan, a hoe-cake is on the fire, an- 
other head of cabbage is thrown into the pot, somebody 
is sheeting the bed upstairs, and (before your leggings 
are off) the case-bottle is at your elbow, and the native 
Virginian has taken possession of you, as if you were 
the Prodigal Son or the last number of the Richmond 
Ejiquirer. 

Meantime your arrival has produced an excitement 
among the small Ebo-shins, as you will discover the 
first time you step out into the yard. A number of 
wild, black eyes are intently watching you through 
the panels of the fence, and the conversation which 
ensues on your appearance shows the estimation in 
which "Ole Marster," as the native Virginian is called, 
is held by his young barbarians. 

"I lay you what you dar," says one, "dat dat ar 
man come all de way from way down yarnder, clean 
to Rich'um." 

"I lay," says another, "dat he war two par of 
gallowses — don' you saw de strops on his britchis?" 

"I spec," says a third, "dat ar man mighty rich. 
I spec he got bofe pockits full o' fopunsapunnies, 
and he gwine gin me two un 'um." 

"Shuh!" replied a sage little gizzard-foot; "shuh! 
y'all ain't talkin' 'bout nuthin' 'tall. Ole Marster he 
53 



BACON AND GREENS 

de richest man in de worl'. Ole Mars' kin buy a 
hom'ny mortar full o' dat ar man 'thout nuvver payin' 
fur 'um, an' den forgit it, 'fore dat ar man know it!" 

We will not stop to describe his old weather-boarded 
often wainscoted, house, with its queer old furniture 
and its old family portraits, which indicate for Jeems 
Jimmison or his wife a better origin than his name 
would lead you to expect. One peculiarity, though, 
must not go unmentioned. No matter how small this 
house is, it is never full. There is always room for 
one more in it; and, on special occasions, such as a 
wedding or a Christmas frolic, the number of feather 
beds, straw beds, shuck beds, pallets, and shakedowns 
which this old house produces is literally incredible. 
To feed and lodge, if need be, the entire State is not a 
point of honor with Coonrod, but a matter of course — 
no other idea ever entered his head. What is called 
"hospitality" by other folks is with him so much a part 
of his nature that he has no name for it (unless he 
keeps an "Entertainment"), and he never uses the 
word. How he managed, on a worn-out estate, to re- 
peat, as it were, the miracle of the loaves and fishes is 
a mystery which must be charged, I fear, to the "bar- 
barism of slavery," for the art of feeding and lodging 
everybody seems already to be passing away. 

Nor can we stop to describe the good wife of the 
native Virginian, with her check apron, key-basket, 
and knitting sheath — the pattern of domestic virtue; 
a matron, compared with whom the Roman matron, 
so famed, is as inferior as paganism is to the religion 
of our Saviour; the hardest-worked slave on the estate 
54 



BACON AND GREENS 

— toiling, as she does, from year to year and year after 
year, for every human being, black and white, male 
and female, young and old, on the plantation, and 
yet a Christian gentlewoman, refined, tender, pure — 
almost too good and pure for earth. Think what 
she has done for Virginia! Think, too, that, under the 
new order of things, she also may be passing away. 
Of all the sad things which press upon us in these 
troubled days, there is none so sad as this; no, not one. 
For without the Virginia matron there is no longer any 
Virginia; and without Virginia, what, to Virginians, is 
this world? Let us hasten away from the thought. 

In like manner, we must hasten away from Larkin's 
sons and daughters; the former brave and wild — 
destined to run much their father's course; the latter 
unaccountably pretty, spirited, and cultivated. If it 
be a matter of wonder how Mrs. Coonrod manages 
to get up such marvellous breakfasts and dinners out 
of her dingy, dirt-floored kitchen, still more wonder- 
ful are the girls whom she raises in her "shakledy" 
old house, ten miles from anywhere, and entirely out 
of the world. We cannot spare the time to praise 
the boys and girls — the noble products of a social 
system which mankind has united to put down — for 
the native Virginian, as we now find him, is almost 
entirely alone, his family being scattered far and wide — 
all married and thriving, except one "black sheep," 
who has taken to drink, to fiddling, and to shrouding 
everybody in the neighborhood who dies. 

In person, the old man is above the medium height, 
"dark-complected," spare built and generally long 
65 



BACON AND GREENS 

and lean in the lower limbs, — and that's the reason 
he rides a horse so well. His voice is loud, owing to 
a habit he has of conversing familiarly with the hands 
in the field about a mile and a half off. His vision 
is wonderfully acute — partly from long practice with 
the rille, and partly from the custom of inspecting 
his neighbors' vehicles at incredible distances. If he 
live on the side of the road, you will see him on Sunday 
eying a cloud of dust on the remote horizon. " Jeems," 
he will say to his son; "Jeems, ain't that old Peter 
Foster's carryall?" "Yes," says Jeems, without a 
moment's hesitation; "and I'll be dad-shim 'd if that off 
mule has been shod yit." His accent is as broad as 
the nose of his blackest negro. He says "thar" and 
"whar," "upstars" and "down in the parster," talks 
about "keepin' a appintment," not next year, but 
"another year," when he expects to raise "a fine 
chance uv curcumbers" in the "gearden," and a 
"tollibly far crap o' tubbarker." If he is a tidewater 
man, he does not say "chance," but "charnce," and, 
instead of saying the " har" of the head, he says " heyar." 
If he eats cornfield peas much, he becomes a virulent 
Virginian, and caps the climax of bad English by some 
such expression as "me and him was a-gwine a-fishin'." 
This he does, not for the lack of knowledge, but partly 
because he loves to talk as unlike a Yankee as possible, 
partly because he "don' keer" particularly about his 
language or anything else, except his political and 
religious opinions, and mainly because he is entirely 
satisfied (as, indeed, all Virginians are) that the English 
is spoken in its purity nowhere on this earth but in 
56 



BACON AND GREENS 

Virginia. "Tharfo' " he "kin affode" to talk "jest" 
as he "blame chooses." 

His individuality, his independence and indifference 
to matters on which other people set great store, is 
shown, not only in his pronunciation, but in his dress 
— you see it in the tie of his cravat, the cut of hi', coat, 
the fit of his waistcoat, the set of his pantaloons, the 
reaching of his hair, and the color of his pocket-hand- 
kerchief — a red bandanna with yellow spots. But the 
whole character of the man is fully told only when 
you come to open his "secretary." There you will find 
his bonds, accounts, receipts, and even his will, jabbed 
into pigeon-holes or lying about loose in the midst of 
a museum of powder-horns, shot-gourds, turkey-yelpers, 
flints, screws, pop-corn, old horseshoes and watermelon 
seed. 

How such a man, with such a "secretary," can suc- 
ceed in life, and how, above all, he and the like of him 
contrived to play the part which they have played in 
the history of this country, is something to be accounted 
for only on the bacon-and-greens principle. 

Since the first settlement at Jamestown, when the 
hogs increased so fast that the town had to be palisaded 
in order to keep them out, Virginians have been well 
spoken of; but of late, and since the downfall of the old 
Commonwealth, praise, in some quarters, had been 
lavish. Is it on the principle, De mortuis nil nisi honum, 
and because it is thought that Virginians are soon to be 
numbered among the races which have perished? I 
trust not. But hear what has been said of them by a 
Northern orator — the Hon. Henry Clay Dean, of Iowa: 
57 



BACON AND GREENS 

"I dare speak one kind word for the oppressed in 
the very teeth of the oppressor. Since Adam took 
possession of Eden, no part of his heritage has given 
to man such an hundred years of history as that of 
Virginia, beginning with the pubhc Hfe of George 
Washington, and ending with the surrender of the 
armies of Gen. Robert E. Lee. The great orator, 
Patrick Henry, whose spirit hfted up the first revo- 
lution, and whose persuasive voice called armies up 
the valleys and down from the mountains to defend 
New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts from the 
invader's hoof, was a Virginian. George Washington, 
who led those armies, was a Virginian. Thomas Jef- 
ferson, whose great soul encompassed the world and 
lifted its light upon a benighted age to teach it liberty, 
was a Virginian. James Madison, who environed our 
rights by a flame of living fire, which, in the most illus- 
trious periods of the past and present century, preserved 
unharmed all that was sacred in life and precious in 
hope — the Constitution of the United States, — was a 
Virginian. John Marshall, whose luminous mind, 
guided by immutable justice, gave being to a most pro- 
found and comprehensive judiciary, the bulwark of 
American institutions, was a Virginian. Henry Clay, 
whose commanding soul drew after him one full half 
of the whole moral and intellectual power of America, 
was a Virginian. The Lees — Richard Henry, Arthur 
Francis Lightfoot, Light-Horse Harry, and his illus- 
trious son, Robert Edmund Lee, were Virginians. 
Thomas J. Jackson, the great military genius of the 
western hemisphere, was a Virginian. The courts 
58 



BACON AND GREENS 

and the legislatures, the forums, and the pulpits of 
every State in the Union, and of every government 
on the continent, have been adorned by Virginians. 
Their blood, shed in noble defence of liberty, has 
fattened every valley, and their bones have bleached 
on every mountain, from Bunker Hill to the City of 
Mexico." 

I can imagine Larkin's smile as he reads, or hears 
read, these compliments. He is simple-minded and 
easily flattered; but — the sop comes a little too late. 
We, who know him better, have no flattery to bestow 
on him; on the contrary, if the truth must be told, 
we can but pronounce him as great a bundle of infirm- 
ities, crotchets, and vices as was ever put together. 
I say "vices." Does he not chew homespun tobacco 
inordinately and spit promiscuously? Does he not 
neglect to keep a set of books, and care more about 
giving good dinners than saving money? Was he 
not, in former times, in the habit of whipping his 
negroes as often, almost, as his own children ? Did he 
not cherish the vile political heresy of State-rights, and, 
in his childish ignorance, proclaim the absurd proposi- 
tion that Virginia, free and sovereign, antedated the 
Constitution, and, with her sister sovereigns, gave that 
Constitution all the power it possessed ? Was he not a 
heretic in religion as well as in politics, and ever ready 
to maintain that the pulpit is no place for "Lessons of 
the Hour," and for the worship of national ensigns? 
Finally, instead of preaching, did he not practise the 
doctrine, "Do unto others as you would be done by," 
and hold that it was ungendemanly to cheat, and 
59 



BACON AND GREENS 

wrong even to tell lies and to steal ? For the life of me, 
I do not see how you are to flatter such a man. 

As for the crotchets of the native Virginian, they are 
no great matter. He will have his pets — his blooded 
mare, his favorite pointer, his pack of hounds, his 
game rooster, "Dominicker" hen, "cropper-crown" 
pullet, muscovy drake, and a little lame negro, who 
lights his pipe with a coal of fire from the kitchen and 
pats "Juba" for him. But the most curious of his 
whims (and one which is somewhat rare among native 
Virginians) is a deadly hatred of liquor in all of its 
forms; an exceedingly strange whim indeed, you will 
admit, and one which, as I have observed, is generally 
accompanied by preposterous vagaries about the virtues 
of blood-root, puccoon-root, "jimson" weed, white-oak 
bark, dog-wood, wild-cherry, Indian-turnip, and wake- 
robin. 

Notions like these may be tolerated, but who can 
bear the cabbage-head weakness of a man who will 
not consult his own interests before all other interests; 
will concern himself about politics when he ought to 
be inventing a new method of making doughnuts out of 
free-love, and looking, philanthropically, after the moral 
and intellectual welfare of the man in the moon ; and who 
is so incurably conservative that he won't fill up the 
mud-puddle in front of his gate, won't mend the lock 
on his back door, or whitewash his worm-fences, or, 
paint his crank-sided carriage-house, or clean the teeth 
of his cattle with Sozodont, or dress his field-hands in 
duplex-elliptic hoop-skirts? What are we to think of 
such a man? 

60 



BACON AND GREENS 

"A blunder," says Fouchet, "is worse than a crime," 
and, in a worldly point of view, the native Virginian 
is a mass of blunders. " A persistent course of murder," 
according to De Quincey, "will inevitably end in pro- 
crastination" — the worst of crimes; and procrastination 
is the grand characteristic of the native Virginian. He 
will not do to-day what can be done to-morrow, or do 
to-morrow what can be put off till the next day; no, not 
though the whole world of prompt business men get 
ahead of him — not though the heavens fall and the 
lightnings descend and put out the other eye of his 
one-eyed calf. 

How such a man, so faulty, so simple-minded, so 
warm-hearted, so open-handed, and so what the world 
calls "lazy," succeeded in playing the part which he 
has played in history and exerted so powerful an in- 
fluence in the government of this country, is, I re- 
peat, a marvel which can be explained only on the 
bacon-and-greens hypothesis which I have broached. 
Look at the firm, tawny skin of his face, and if you 
are not reminded of pork about four days old, then 
your eyes must be even weaker than my own. Heaven 
defend me from irreverence, but I confess I never 
look at the august portrait of the father of his country 
without thinking of jowl and turnip "sallet." And 
that our fathers loved bacon and greens is proved by 
the fact that Chief-Justice Marshall, dining one day 
with Nicholas Biddle, had his plate changed five times, 
and each time insisted on being helped to bacon and 
greens. In the nature of things, it must be a fact that 
Stonewall Jackson was raised on the best family-cured 
61 



BACON AND GREENS 

hams. How else could he have trotted his "foot- 
cavalry" so rapidly up and down the Valley? I know 
that Joe Johnston loved good bacon, because he was 
born in Prince Edward, not very far from Farmville. 
Jubal Early, judging from his manly letters while in 
exile, must have been raised entirely on chine — back- 
bone. 

As for Robert E. Lee, there is a story in De Fon- 
taine's "Marginalia" to the effect that, during the 
latter part of the war. General Lee lived exclusively on 
cabbage boiled in salt-water, and allowed himself the 
luxury of middling only twice a week. One day, 
while in camp, he invited a number of distinguished 
guests to dine with him. When the table was set, 
behold a great pile of cabbage and a piece of middling 
about as big as the palm of your hand. Out of polite- 
ness, the guests all declined middling. Next day the 
general called for it. "Marse Robert," said his ser- 
vant; "Marse Robert, de fac' is, dat ar was horrid 
middlin', an' I done 'turn'd it to de man whar I horrid 
it fum." General Lee heaved a deep sigh of disap- 
pointment, and pitched into his cabbage. 

That's the story, and a great many people don't 
believe it. I do; every word of it; especially the part 
about the cabbage. But I will tell you a story about 
General Lee worth two of that, and one which is true; 
for I got it from an officer who heard General Lee tell 
it on the very day of its occurrence. 

"Not long after the surrender, a soldier, ragged, 
haggard, and dirty, rang at General Lee's door and 
called for the general. He was shown into the parlor, 
62 



BACON AND GREENS 

and, in a few moments, General Lee came in. 'Gene- 
ral,' said he, standing up as General Lee entered, 'I'm 
one of your soldiers, just from Point Lookout.' The 
general shook him cordially by the hand. 'And I've 
come here,' he went on, 'as the representative of four of 
my comrades, who are too ragged and dirty to venture 
to see you. We are all Virginians, General, from Roa- 
noke County, and they sent me here to see you on a 
little business.' He paused a moment, and continued. 
'They've got our President in prison' (here the large 
tear-drops rolled slowly down his hollow cheeks), 'and 
— now — they — talk about ar — resting — you.' His voice 
here fairly broke into a sob. 'And, General, we can't 
stand, we'll never stand, and see that.' His sunken 
chest heaved convulsively; but, choking down his sobs, 
and with his eyes still wet, he continued his little ad- 
dress. 'Now, General, we five men have got about 
two hundred and fifty acres of land in Roanoke — very 
good land, too, it is, sir, — and, if you'll only come up 
there and live, I've come to offer you our land, all of it, 
and we five men will work as your field-hands, and 
you'll have very little trouble in managing it with us 
to help you.' Still speaking through his tears, he kept 
on. 'And, General, there are near about a hundred 
of us left in old Roanoke, and they could never take 
you there, for we could hide you in the hollows of the 
mountains, and the last man of us would die in your 
defence.' 

"General Lee was affected to tears by the great- 
hearted generosity and devotion of this noble soldier and 
his companions, but was compelled to decline his offer. 
63 



BACON AND GREENS 

"Still, the Roanoke hero would not give it up. 
With a great deal of delicacy, he intimated that the 
ladies of General Lee's family would lack society on a 
lonely mountain farm, but said that the Springs were 
hard-by, and that, out of the proceeds of the farm, 
General Lee and his family could afford to spend all 
their summers there, and thus find the society which 
those devoted 'field-hands' did not dare to offer. 

" But General Lee was still forced to decline. Never- 
theless, he would not allow the brave fellow to depart 
until he was better clad than when he came in. 
Scanty as was our great chieftain's wardrobe at that 
time, he insisted on sharing it with the Roanoke 
soldier." 

We must return to our subject. The theme, to me, 
is inexhaustible; not so is your patience. You see I 
have spoken of the native Virginian in the present 
tense, not in the past. Thank God! I can do so; for 
the native Virginian "still lives." An impression pre- 
vails that this great original will soon be numbered 
with the brave men who were before Agamemnon, and 
that he is passing into history quite unconsciously to 
himself. I can see the old man as he sits by his de- 
serted hearth, where the fire, made of his fence-rails 
(for there is no one to cut wood for him), is dying out. 
The coffee-pot, brought by the one faithful servant, 
sets on the "trivet" as of yore; but the purring cat, the 
litde negro girls picking cotton, the clicking needles of 
the comely matron, and the wide circle of cheerful sons 
and daughters, nephews and nieces, with the welcome 
stranger, are gone. Gone are the heaped-up logs of 
64 



i 



BACON AND GREENS 

hickory and the roaring flames, which once widened 
that family circle till the chairs of the whispering lovers 
touched the chamber walls; even the coals under the 
"trivet" are dead, the coffee untasted, and the single 
cake of corn-bread on the table is forgotten. 

Poor old man! The night is bitter cold, but he sits 
by the dying fire, with his head bowed in his withered 
hands, unconscious of the cold. The tall old clock 
has ceased to tick; what recks he of the time? The 
negro-quarters are empty, the old cook is asleep in the 
kitchen — there is not a living soul in the house but 
himself. Without, the icy rain is pelting pitilessly, 
and the winter winds are sobbing as if in agony. The 
empty house shakes under the tread of the tempest, 
and there are ghostly noises in the lifeless, chilly rooms. 
Poor old man ! his good wife has not survived the shock 
of war; his daughters, with their children, have fled for 
safety to the towns; and of all his bold sons, not one is 
left — they are under the sod at Manassas, at Gettys- 
burg, at Chickamauga. 

Poor old man! Once only he lifts his gray head 
— to look through the window-panes, blurred by the 
tears of the wintry rain. Over his frozen fields, where 
no crops are seeded for the coming year, over the dead 
waste of his neighbors' fields, over forest and mountain, 
over State after State, the vision of his thought ex- 
tends ; and in all that space, wide as a continent, he sees 
naught but broken and deserted households like his 
own, plantations devastated, industry destroyed, masters 
impoverished, and servants doomed to extinction — a 
benign civilization overthrown by one rude earthauake 
65 



BACON AND GREENS 

shock, blasted and obliterated, as if lightning itself had 
scorched and scathed the land. 

What a picture for his dim eyes, weary of the world, 
to dwell upon ! What hope for him, who looks out upon 
this wide-extended scene of sorrow — thrice sorrowful 
because of the winter storm, thrice sorrowful still be- 
cause of the contrast with the plenteous, joyous days 
that are forever gone — what hope for him but in the 
grave? Better, far better, that he should be gathered 
unto his fathers ere yet the more evil days have come. 
Poor old man! 

Poor old man! Who says this? Who desires to 
harrow up your feelings and to kindle new animosi- 
ties? My friends, the middle-age chronicles tell us, 
in regard to the wild boar, that "what place soever he 
biteth, whether on man or dog, the heat of his teeth 
causeth an inflammation of the wound. If, therefore, 
he doth but touch the hair of the dog, he burneth it 
off; nay, huntsmen have tried the heat of his teeth 
by laying hairs on them as soon as he was dead, and 
they have shrivelled up as if touched with a red-hot 
iron." 

Of this hot and touchy nature is the native Virginian. 

Further it is said of the boar: "He hath a knack, 
when stabbed, of running up the shaft of the spear, 
so as to gore his slayer even in his own death-pang." 
Am I treading upon dangerous ground? Be not 
disturbed. The Virginian is not going to run up the 
shaft of the spear; he is not going to gore his slayer, 
for he is not going to be slain. Not less brave than 
other men, he nevertheless objects to dying while there 
66 



BACON AND GREENS 

is anything left to live for; and there is something to 
live for. It is that "fair and abounding land" which 
gave him and his children birth, and which is now 
doubly dear because of the infinitely precious blood 
which has moistened and hallowed it forever. 

Moreover, the Virginian is the last man on earth 
to accept commiseration. Flatter and fool him, you 
may easily; but pity him, never! He will none of it. 
Pascal tells us that "pity for the unfortunate is no 
proof of virtue; on the contrary, it is desirable to 
make this demonstration of humanity, and to acquire, 
at no expense, the reputation of tenderness. Pity there- 
fore, is of little worth." 

The Virginian, possibly, never heard of Pascal; but 
he feels this in his heart, and he scorns your pity. 
Lord Halifax says, "Complaining is contempt upon 
one's self," and therefore the Virginian does not com- 
plain. He accepts the issue of the great struggle, 
not as the will of man, but as the will of Him whom 
he was taught to reverence and obey at his mother's 
knee. He was brought up to tell the truth, and to 
keep his word. Now that the hatchet is buried, the 
Virginian will keep the troth he has plighted to the 
General Government. Rest assured of that. 

Remember, moreover, that no kind of live stock is 
so easily improved as the hog on which the Virginian 
subsists, none so readily accommodate themselves to 
circumstances, and that the changes produced by do- 
mestication and civilization are permanent. Remem- 
ber, too, that few plants are so hardy as the cabbage, 
and none so vastly improved by transplanting. (This 
67 



BACON AND GREENS 

is the secret of the Virginian's success outside of his 
own State.) What is the inevitable influence? It is 
this : The Virginian will adapt himself to the new order 
of things; he will master the situation; and, under the 
stimulus of Progress, with a big P, the size of his head 
(cabbage-head though it may be deemed by his foes) 
will astonish the moral agriculturists of all Christendom 
— the Captain Wragges of Exeter and Faneuil halls. 

He loves the land which God gave him as a heritage 
— loves it and is proud of it a thousand-fold more 
than ever. But he will not oppose Progress. If any- 
body wants his land, he will sell 'em a "tract"; but 
he will retain enough to raise his greens and give his 
hogs free range, so as to keep up the quality of his 
bacon. He will welcome immigrants by myriads and 
without fear, because he knows he can feed them 
on proper food and turn them into Virginians with 
surprising rapidity. 

In his changed estate — his servants all gone — he 
will no longer be able to board and lodge the whole 
world; but he will be able to give his friends a hearty, 
old-fashioned Virginia welcome, and a dish of real old 
Virginia "Bacon and Greens." 



Ill 

MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

A RAMBLING SUMMER PIECE 

'IX/'HEN you get to the little town of F , look 

^ ' out of the car window, O passenger on the S 

side railroad! and you will see an old gentleman, with 
a long knotty staff in his hand, a broad-brimmed white 
wool hat on his head, a heavy iron-gray beard on his 
chin, a small long-tail black coat, out at elbows, on his 
back, and tow-linen pantaloons on his nether extrem- 
ities — a striking object in the large motley crowd which 
swarms around the depot every time the train arrives. 
This is my Uncle Flatback, come to town to get the 
mail and take notes of every man who enters the 
bar-room, in the basement of that commodious tavern 
you see across the way. A remarkable man is old 
Flatback — "Uncle Jeems," or, in that negro dialect 
which Virginians so delight in, "Unc' Jim" — as he is 
generally called, for short. Do you wish to know 
more of him? You will get out of the cars, follow 
the railroad track through the Deep Cut, over the 
Buffalo Bridge, and along the great embankment, until 
you come to a persimmon-tree on the right-hand side 
of the road. Looking to the south, you catch a glimpse 
69 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

of a house embosomed in trees, with stables and other 
out-houses close by. That is the Flatback mansion, 
dubbed Mountain View, from the circumstances that 
the blue knob of a mountain, in an adjacent county, 
is visible from the premises. 

I am sure you will like Uncle Flatback's house 
and yard — the former is so cool and roomy, the lat- 
ter so level, green, and shady. Indeed, there are two 
houses, an old and a new one, joined by a covered 
passage, with folding doors, which when thrown wide 
open, in the summer time, turn the passage into a 
porch — the most delightful part of the house; for the 
breeze is always blowing there. The old house is 
charming, I think. It is only a story and a half high, 
and is built in that solid, honest way which was the 
rule everywhere in Virginia before the new-fangled, 
flimsy, slazy style of the Yankees was introduced. 
The chimneys are in one corner of the rooms, and 
being big, old-fashioned, triangular fellows — enough 
bricks in one of them to make a modern house — one 
chimney answers for half a dozen rooms, if need be; 
consequently the rooms are five-sided instead of square 
— which pleases me mightily, because it is Virginian, 
and smacks of the old days. If ever I build a house, 
I shall pattern after the old Virginia style. Hang your 
model cottages — your suburban villas — your Hudson 
River contraptions; I'd as soon eat codfish chowder 
and cold bread, or subscribe to a Yankee newspaper, 
as live in one of them. 

There are four rooms below, including the dining- 
room, and two above stairs, in the old house. Uncle 
70 



Flatback inhabits the room next to the little back 
porch, which looks toward the kitchen, the negro 
quarters, the corn-house, and the stable. His door 
is never locked from one year's end to another. It is 
true, there are two double-barrel guns and a rifle in 
the corner by the wardrobe, but they are never loaded, 
except when a crow or a hawk comes near the house, 
and as the old load has always to be drawn — lightning 
would hardly explode it — before the new one is put 
in, you may judge in what danger thieves, feathered 
or unfeathered, stand at Mountain View. The back 
porch, facing east, receives the first rays of the morning 
sun, and is shady nearly all day; hence it is a favorite 
resort of mine, though I am generally in the way, for 
there is always some household business going on here 
— some slicing of curcumbers (call 'em ^eif;cumbers ? 
Never!), shelling of peas, washing of butter, or rinsing 
(I'd rather say rensing, yea, even renching, if you will 
allow me) of things. But I love to see people slice 
curcumbers and shell peas. Then it is so pleasant to 
be where you can see dinner coming in — where the 
dishes are stopped on the way and fixed up— more 
butter put in the beets, a little more pepper in the stew, 
and so on. 

I have a passion for porches. To me, a porch is 

A thing of beauty — a joy forever, 

except in very cold weather. If I had the building 
of a house, I would make it mosdy of porches, upper 
and lower, with a room or so hung here and there on 
a nail driven into the pillars. Had I been unfortunate 
71 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

enough to have Hved in the days of the ancients, I 
would have kept a stoa — not that I have any mercantile 
talent — and talked philosophy and "High Die" against 
the best of them, with my heels on the "bannisters" 
and a pipe in my mouth. If Socrates had come fooling 
after me, trying to trap me, I would have told him I 
was a hardshell Baptist, given him a chew of tobacco, 
and requested him to behave himself. But I wouldn't 
give a white-bone button to have lived in the days 
when the domestic negro and fried chicken, with plenty 
of creamy gravy and a few sprigs of fresh parsley were 
unknown. The Greek is a fine language, but I prefer 
Virginian. It has no aorist, no middle voice, and other 
woes to the early getter-by-heart. A Virginian can say 
what he has got to say without regard to grammar — 
that vile infraction of the Bill of Rights and the liber- 
ties of the people. I contend that freedom of speech is 
possible only in Virginia. 

Then again, I couldn't have gone the ancient costume. 
It is picturesque, does well for marble, and for his- 
torical paintings in oil, but it is sadly unfit for a citizen 
of Buckingham or Prince Edward. Imagine a man 
walking through a new ground, or a ploughed field, 
with a great sheet flapping at his calves. He would feel 
worse than a woman. Consider him in a brier patch. 
How could a body get over a fence, ride a horse, or 
chase a hare, say nothing of climbing for coons? In 
the saddle, my breeches have a grievous tendency 
upward anyway, as if the washerwoman had starched 
them with leaven; what on earth would become of me 
in a togaf I would show ankles higher than a circus 
72 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

rider, or a White Sulphur belle dancing the German; 
I couldn't bear to go to town unless the people would 
do as they did when Queen Godiva rode through the 
streets of Coventry. No, you painters keep your grand 
historical wardrobes; give me a straw hat, an oznaburg 
shirt, no w^aistcoat, tow-linen pantaloons, with yarn 
"gallowses," home-made cotton socks and a pair of 
low-quarter shoes, moderately thick-soled, made by 
Booker Jackson. 

The attic rooms, up the "little stars," in the old 
house are delightful to sleep in when the summer rains 
are drumming lullabies with their soft wet knuckles on 
the mossy shingles, or in winter when the icy gusts 
suck up the flames from the deep little fireplace. I 
know not why it is that attics, with their sloping ceilings 
and little windows on either side of the chimney, 

Where the sun comes peeping in at morn, 

have such attraction for me. Don't let's analyze 
feelings; vivisections are so horrid, and the weather, 
to-day, is so warm. Who can trace the origin of ideas 
and emotions, when the thermometer is 90° in the 
shade? Who can be a metaphysician with a fly in 
the burr of his ear, and two on his forehead? I.ocke 
himself couldn't. Dear reader, you know what a coun- 
try — not a hotel — attic is. The very name brings 
back the days of childhood, with a thousand gende 
memories, which we may hint but never tell. And if 
you have ever been so happy as to lodge in an attic 
tenanted by a young lady, who makes way for you 
because the house is small, or the guests are many, then 
73 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

memories brighter than any of childhood are yours for- 
ever,^ and thenceforth attics are sacred in your eyes. 
My good fortune, not very many weeks ago, led me to 
a little upper chamber in a house on ground which has 
since become historical. The dormer-windows of that 
litde chamber looked out upon the Chickahominy. 

A feeling of awe comes over the sinner as he vent- 
ures tremblingly into the sanctuary where Sleep, the 
good old nun, keeps watch over the maiden Virtue. 
He puts the candle upon the spotless dressing-table 
and stands irresolute. All is so still — so tidy and 
orderly; so clean and fair; so sweet and pure. Angels 
are here. He sees their robes in the curtains of the 
windows, the drapery of the chaste couch and the dress- 
ing-table. What shall he do ? How dare he get in that 
bed? The pictures on the wall are looking at him; 
the mirror is a great big glaring eye. \Vliat! disrobe 
here ? Not he. He catches sight of his pale, distressed 
face in the looking-glass, and laughs a low laugh at 
himself. Uneasy, delighted wretch. He wouldn't be 
out of here for the world, but he don't know what to do. 
He is afraid to move, lest he disarrange or knock down 
something. Finally, after much cogitation and per- 
plexment, he thinks it will be no harm to sit down in 
that litde chair in the corner, and steps softly toward 
it, bumping his head as he goes along. "Dear me! 
what low chairs ladies do use!" A view of the whole 
room — half in shadow, half in shine — pleases him 
much. He contrasts it with his own disorderly bache- 
lor's den, and sighs. One by one he takes in each 
separate object, marks them all with a note of admira- 
74 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

tion, and at length fixes his eyes permanently on not the 
smallest article of furniture in the room. Long time 
he broods over it, his blameless thought 

Cozening the pillow of a lawful kiss. 

He thinks of the nest of some white-winged dove — 
the shell of the pearl of purest ray serene. "Bless 
her sweet soul!" ends his reverie, and up he rises, 
for it is getting late, and he must decide upon the 
course he shall pursue till morning. Grown bolder, 
he presumes to touch the little bottles of Bohemian 
glass on the toilet-table, and marvels much at every- 
thing — deeming womankind wonderful creatures in 
all their ways, and envying the hardihood of those 
courageous men whose brazen and impudent nerves 
carry them unfalteringly through all the "masked 
batteries" and feminine mysteries which surround 
and terrify him here at dead of night. He takes up 
tenderly, as if they were so many infants, the books 
that lie on the dormer-window-sill, reads their titles, 
approves the literary taste of the young lady, and 
lays them carefully down again, exactly as they were 
before he put his profane hands upon them, listen- 
ing the while, and hoping nobody downstairs hears 
him fumbling about; for now it is very late indeed. 
The candle is in the socket — he must do something. 
What! Ah! now he has it. He will play hench- 
man to his lady love, lie down outside the door, and 
guard her chamber, as though she herself were sleep- 
ing there. But the servant, unacquainted with ro- 
mance, coming in the morning to bring fresh water 
75 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

and black his shoes, and finding him stretched in the 
passage with his clothes on, will declare he is drunk. 
At last, his candle being out, he remembers that he 
was sent here to go to sleep in the accustomed mode, 
and praying to be forgiven, he reclines upon the out- 
ermost edge of the dove's nest, yields him to sweet 
fancies, which presently become dreams, and so — good 
night to him, for 'tis the happiest of his life. 

We return to the "little stars" which lead to the 
attic in the old house at Mountain View, in order that 
we may notice the workmanship. Here is admirable 
carpentry — joining such as you rarely see in these de- 
generate days, and material unknown to our impatient 
green-timber times. How firm the steps are under- 
foot and how unworn, although they have been in daily 
use full half a century! It is true the light-slippered 
feet of the ladies and the bare soles of Ethiopian and 
mulatto maids have frequented this sturdy little stair- 
case, but the very grain of the wood, polished to the 
neck-breaking point, shows what honest workmen our 
fathers were. 

I would like for you to rest a moment in the room at 
the foot of the attic staircase, because I have something 
to tell you. There is nothing in this room to attract 
attention, except a red-cushioned settee and one of 
those old-fashioned combinations of bookcase, desk, 
and bureau, which are becoming so rare. When I 
first set up in lUe—oetat 21, as M.D.— I owned one of 
these old conveniences, but sold it in less than a year, 
like a fool. How I could have managed to lug the 
thing about with me in my manifold wanderings, sub- 
76 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

sequent to the Esculapian era, it is impossible to say; 
but if ever I do get settled in a country home I intend 
to have a "secretary" — what a fine old name! — at the 
risk of my life. How in the name of sense is a country 
gentleman to get along without a secretary, with its 
endless pigeon-holes and secret drawers to keep his 
shot-gourds, powder-horns, cap-boxes, bonds, accounts, 
and odds and ends of everything in, I should like to 
know? Why it wouldn't be worth a man's while to 
have a son without a "secretary" to unlock for him 
on rainy days, as a special and very great favor: nor 
would there be any place to hide things from a man's 
w^ife. It is folly to expect a boy to entertain proper 
respect for a father who doesn't own a "secretary" — 
that wonderful household museum and arcanum of 
manhood's great mysteries and treasures. 

But about the litde room at the foot of the staircase. 
Listen. 

One summer night, years ago, long before my Uncle 
Flatback ever dreamed of living here, a young lady 
tripped noiselessly down these old stair steps, then 
almost new, and jumped out of the window. The 
wheat, heavy with dew, was growing up to the very 
walls of the house, and lest the young lady's clothes 
might get wet, an obliging young gentleman is at hand, 
to receive her in his arms and carry her through the 
wheat-field. In the edge of the woods, some hundred 
yards off, a handsome vehicle, drawn by blooded 
horses, is waiting. Round go the wheels — off fly the 
young couple through the forest, and ere the morrow's 
sun is set, they are in North Carolina, married. Very 
77 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

fair and sweet and gende was the young lady; very 
brave and wild was her lover — too wild, the old folks 
thought, for so sweet a girl. But love tamed the bold 
lover, and this proved the happiest of runaway 
matches. Many sons and daughters were born unto 
them, and — rare good fortune in this checkered life! — 
all of them crowned their parents heads with honor. 
A more prosperous and respected family dwells not 
within the limits of the Commonwealth. One of the 
sons was the captain of our company at Manassas — the 

sturdy "Rifle Grays" of L . Brave as his sire, he 

rose to be lieutenant-colonel of the "gallant Eleventh," 
and now lies sick of a severe wound received in the 
fierce battle of the Seven Pines. How the years have 
sped since the night in which the lovers eloped from 
this old house! Many years have come and gone over 
the sleeping dust of the maiden who leaped out of that 
window. I remember her in the prime of womanhood, 
and she was sweet and gentle and beautiful then. The 
snows of seventy winters lie on the brow of the bold 
lover, but the fire of his youth is not spent, and he is 
passing the evening of his days peacefully away in the 
midst of his children, and his children's children, hon- 
ored and beloved by all. This happy romance always 
repeats itself to me when I seat myself at the foot of 
the "little stars," and look out of the window, and 
listen to the summer winds sighing through the leaves 
of the stout aspen which has grown up in the old wheat- 
field, now a verdant yard. 

I shall not detain you with a minute description of 
the new house, which, as you know, is joined to the old 
78 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

by a covered passage. It is a more pretentious but 
far less substantial edifice than its humble companion. 
On the ground-floor there is a high-pitched parlor — 
what has become of all the "drawing-rooms" we used 
to have five-and-twenty years ago, I wonder ? — and over 
the parlor there are two chambers, also high-pitched, 
and above them a sizable garret. So you see this mod- 
ern structure, which every thunder-gust shakes to its 
foundation, is tall enough to look down with contempt 
on the old house. But, notwithstanding the disparity 
in years and stature, the two seem to get along very 
well together. The hard, mathematical eye of a Yan- 
kee would be offended at the juxtaposition of so uneven 
a couple, but, thank God! we in Virginia are used to 
these incongruous architectural matches. It will be a 
sad day for us when there is any regularity about any- 
thing in Virginia. When people begin to build houses 
"on the square," they begin to calculate — or, to give 
the word its idiomatic meanness, "cack'late" — and 
when they begin to "cack'late," they begin to keep 
an account of expenses — which is the infallible pre- 
monitory symptom of the virus of Yankeeism striking 
into the bone. I don't want to live among no sich 
people. I want to go whar I kin build my house catty- 
cornered, lop-sided, slantingdicular, bottom-upward, 
any way I please, and have no correct idea about noth- 
ing, 'cept politics. 

The glory of the new house is the "big room," up- 
stairs. This spacious chamber boasts four great win- 
dows which reach within six inches of the floor — 
ventilation in perfection! You are in the house and 
79 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

out-of-doors at the same time; may see everything, 
hear everything, and feel every wind that blows. On 
one side is the garden, and beyond it, a quarter of a 
mile away, is the railroad; which, seen in profile, looks 
like the key-board of an interminable piano-forte. This 
railroad is great company for us at Mountain View. 
It reminds us that we are in the world of busy life and 
motion, although we are nestled so snugly under the 
locusts that you can hardly see us, brave soldiers, 
as you rush to the wars. It affords an easy path to the 
village, and brings us every day a squad of convalescent 
soldiers, who walk out to get dinner and breathe the 
pure air. We are never tired of it. A locomotive 
under a full head of steam is always attractive. Every 
time a train passes, we all get up to look at it, and, if 
its speed is at all rapid. Uncle Jim seldom fails to ex- 
claim, "I George! she's a goin' uv it." 

Through the window on the opposite side of the 
big room, the vision is led down the sloping fields to 
the "low grounds," now groaning under a luscious 
load of watermelons, muskmelons, and cantaloupes, and 
thence to the river, whose lines of beauty are traced 
by masses of luxuriant foliage, so thickly do the trees 
and clambering vines crowd to the banks to drink the 
life-giving water, all muddy as it is during half the 
year. Ovei the river a hill mounts boldly up, and 
on its top a white house is perched, like a castle on the 
Rhine. Beyond the hill, far in the distance, are the 
knobs of the mountain. Almost at the foot of that 
mountain, the father of Uncle Flatback used to live 
— a Revolutionary soldier, seven years in the line — 
80 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

concerning whom and his hapless daughter, Virginia, 
you may one day hear more. The river side of the 
big upstairs room I like far better than the railroad 
side. The view is more extensive, more varied, rural, 
sequestered. The railroad suggests the busy world and 
all my cares away yonder in the city, crowded now 
with thousands on thousands of sick and wounded, 
and but lately delivered, thank God! from myriads of 
besieging Yankees. Whereas the river, rolling under 
thick-boughed trees, brings thoughts of freedom, peace, 
seclusion, the delights of bathing and fishing to the 
mind. Talking about fishing, there is the noblest 
beech, the best place for fishing, and, sometimes, the 
finest fishing in this little muddy river that heart could 
wish. I wrote a piece once about that old beech, and 
the fishing frolics I have enjoyed while reclining on its 
fantastic roots, equal to any arm-chair, and under its 
scanty shade. When my collected works are printed, 
I want somebody to hunt up that piece, take out the 
nonsense and republish it — for there are some good 
things in it, I think. 

But it is not for the peaceful view only that I like the 
river side of the big room so well. It is on account of the 
trees — the aspen close to the window, and the sturdy 
oaks that tower above the crank-sided carriage-house 
just outside the yard. Oh, me! what delight to lie 
by the window during the lisUess, midsummer days, 
and look at the aspens, all in a flurry of delight, and 
watch the lazy, fleecy clouds far up in the blue welkin. 
And then at night to stretch out in the wide bed, or on 
a soft pallet down on the floor, close by the window, 
81 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

and look up at the stars through the gently moving 
branches, and listen to the murmuring, and whispering 
of the leafy creatures. I know not what they say, but 
I know they are talking. They have their secrets — 
tales of the old, old world, of the "joyous prime" of 
Eden, and that dread time when this planet was not 
ripe for man, but life was striving up to him through 
Nature's every manifestation. 

You can't teach me anything about trees. I'm ac- 
quainted with 'em; have known 'em ever since I was 
a child, and used to spend whole days with 'em in the 
woods. I tell you they are people. Everybody knows 
that some trees are tame and others savage, barbarous, 
half-civilized, and so on. Put a pine-tree in a yard, and 
what does he look like — how does he feel ? He looks 
out of place, and he feels embarrassed and mad, just as 
a negro field-hand would if you were to set him down 
in a parlor, or at a dinner-table in the midst of white 
folks. Whereas an aspen or a locust is perfectly at home 
in a yard, and throws out his arms affectionately toward 
the house, and tries his best to put a hand or two in 
at the window and pat you on the cheek with his 
leafy fingers. You think trees have got no soul, no 
mind, no heart. That's because you have got no soul 
yourself, plague on you! When a little bird hops on 
a twig, and begins singing as if he was singing for 
wages, the tree thrills clean down to his toes in the 
ground. So when the rain comes to fetch water, and 
the winds from away over the mountains and oceans 
come to tell the news, can't you see how happy the 
trees are, how they clap their hands and jump up and 
82 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

down, and get bright in the face, and actually laugh in 
the sunshine ? If you can't its because the panes in the 
windows of your soul need washing. You think be- 
cause trees can't walk they are an inferior order of 
beings. Well, now, if you think a bit, ain't you too 
stuck to this earth? Why don't you step over to the 
next star, and find out something that a tree don't 
know? 

Men have a small opinion of trees because their 
hearts are set on money, stocks, fame, glory, and such 
trash; but boys think differendy. Boys love trees. 
They love to play with them, love to climb them, be- 
cause hugging is the principal part of climbing, and not 
the least portion of loving. And what's the reason 
boys delight so to ride saplings? Young things love 
to play with each other. Do the saplings enjoy it? 
Enjoy it! Now, look here. Do you want to provoke 
me to death? Did you ever ride a sapling? Well, 
then you have noticed that, after you have done riding, 
the sapling bends over for days and days. A man of 
sense would tell you the sapling continued to lean over 
because the "woody fibre," elasticity, etc., etc., and 
scientific so-forth. I know better. It's no such a thing. 
The sapling remains in the stooping posture because 
he thinks a game of leap-frog is going on, and is waiting 
for the next boy to come along; and having a long time 
to live (provided he ain't cut down to make a ridge- 
pole of a hen-house, or a roost for turkeys), and being 
mighty patient and sweet-tempered withal, holds on 
till the pain in his back compels him to rise up again. 
Poor things! I have seen 'em waiting and waiting 
83 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

for days and days after the boys had gone off and for- 
got 'em. It makes me right down sorry to look at 'em. 

Let me come back from tree-talk to the river again — 
the muddy Appomattox — whose waters are as ugly here 
as its name is picturesque. It sweeps around the foot 
of my Uncle Flatback's plantation in a wide, irregular 
curve, until its lines of dense foliage are lost to the view 
from the windows of the room "up the big stars." 
There is a wagon-way which runs in a straight line by 
the sweet-potato patch and the little barn down to the 
sandy low-grounds, which, year after year, bear those 
copious crops of watermelons, muskmelons, and canta- 
loupes for which Mountain View is famous. Just on the 
river bank there is a hut of pine poles, which might 
be taken for a hen-house if it were not so far away from 
the mansion itself. In winter time you might puzzle 
your brain forever to find the use of this hut; but in 
summer the protecting lines of string, stretching from 
end to end of the melon patch, and the numerous scare- 
crows, made out of Winston's old breeches and Polly's 
old petticoats, compel you to the just inference, viz.: 
that it is the guard-house of the dusky sentinels who 
watch over the precious fruit which cumbers the ground 
hard by. 'Lijah, or 'Li jy , poor fellow ! before he died in 
the service of his country— working upon the fortifications 
around Richmond — used to keep watch here; but John 
was always Uncle Flatback's right-hand man in all 
matters pertaining to melons. 

Of the merits of the Mountain View melons I can 
speak by experience, having eaten them a thousand 
times, more or less. My only regret is that I can't 
84 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

eat a thousand at a time. You know, dear reader, 
that there are certain occasions — deemed very sad by 
wise and elevated persons unlike ourselves — when this 
mortal nature gets the better of us, and the only per- 
fect happiness seems to be in the unlimited indulgence 
of our animal appetites. Base, very base are we, 
when these sensual seasons overtake and master us. 
But — poor, pitiful worms of the dust that we are — such 
seasons will arise; and we have to knock under to them, 
just as we do to the periods of frost and sunshine. I 
have known the time, my virtuous and dyspeptic friend, 
when the highest bliss I could picture to myself was 
a cloudless summer day, about two years long, in the 
which the present despicable wretch now writing these 
lines did nothing but sit in his shirt-sleeves, under the 
shade of a mighty tree, and eat the ice-cold core of a 
vast, preposterous, and unbounded watermelon, from 
soon in the morning until midnight. Forgive me, for- 
give me, ye earthly saints who live not by bread alone, 
and who never have any bad thoughts; but the fact is, 
I do really feel sometimes as if I would like to eat or 
drink some particular good thing, right straight ahead 
for several consecutive centuries, without stopping even 
to take breath. 

Under the locusts in the front yard there is a bench 
of a convenient height to be eaten off when a person 
is standing up. Here Uncle Flatback leads his guests 
of a summer evening, and drawing a great pocket- 
knife, plunges it remorselessly into the delicious en- 
trails of his green-ribbed victims, until a dozen or so 
are split wide open, and lie at the mercy of the mouth- 
85 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

watering by-standers. Pitch in freely, young men and 
maidens, but beware of yonder grizzly bearded priest 
of melons, whose sacrificial blade has opened this in- 
viting expanse of vegetable meats for your behoof. His 
stern and oft-repeated "take keer uv the seed" is 
meant in earnest, I assure you. Incur not the wrath 
of the hospitable ancient, whatever you do; but eat 
till you can eat no more, and never mind your fin- 
gers and mouth, over which the sweet juice is rapidly 
crystallizing into sticky watermelon candy, for 'Liza 
— or Link, as the seed-saving ancient calls her — will 
be here presently with a bowl full of fresh spring-water, 
nice soap, and plenty of towels — the people of Moun- 
tain View being a cleanly race, and having a madness 
for towels, of which, to the best of my remembrance, 
there are never less than half a million on hand at a 
time. 

Following the course of the river, you find below 
the watermelon patch a number of towering sycamores, 
rising out of a tangled thicket. In former years these 
trees used to be the resort and dormitory of that most 
graceful object of Southern skies — the "tukky-buz- 
zard." It is said they were driven off by the cannonad- 
ing of the first battle of Manassas, two hundred miles 
away — a pretty story, truly. Just beyond this "roost" 
there is a dam, over which the muddy water falls as 
naturally, if not as beautifully, as at Niagara. This 
dam feeds Morton's or Jackson's mill, a quarter of 
a mile down the stream; and this mill — a biggish pile 
of dusky weather-boarding, which once had some pre- 
tentions to the proud name of Merchants' mills, and 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

the gable of which may be seen peeping above the lux- 
urious foliage that lines the banks of the river — is one 
of the prettiest and most pleasing sights at Mountain 
View. For I am of Macdonald's opinion, that true 
happiness consists in living in the country and owning 
a little mill. Apart from the beauty of the big wheel 
in motion, there is a satisfaction in taking toll of your 
neighbor, a charm in the racket and the dropping 
corns of the hopper, and a sense of company in the 
continual recurrence of a nigger boy, perched on top of 
a meal-bag, far back upon the haunches of a sober-sided 
old family mare. Mills suggest peace, home, and 
plenty; and then I think the apparition of an honest, 
chunky, well-bred, respectful, and not too self-impor- 
tant negro miller, all covered with meal, at the door of 
the mill, is one of the finest sights in the world, next 
to a country blacksmith's shop in the night time. Yan- 
kees and English can write poems about their mills 
and smithies; why can't we of the South? I'll tell 
you; it's because we are too wretchedly lazy. Plague 
take it! if I had the leisure and the mill, or the black- 
smith shop, I wouldn't ask anybody any odds, but 
write the poem myself. And I bet you what you dare, 
it would be a good one, and, what is more to the pur- 
pose, it would be Southern — so Southern that there 
would be no mistaking it. A Yankee would throw up 
the whites of his eyes on reading it. Consoun our 
Southern poets! they sing about everything except the 
things we common people most care about — the scenes 
and sounds of home, far in the depths of the uncon- 
taminated country, where the little that is yet unpolluted 
87 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

by Yankee ideas and customs still remains. Our 
Southern poets all want to be like Shakespeare, who 
was a universal sort of all out-o'-doors and all over 
creation of a fellow — a man of no time and no country, 
but for all time and all countries — and in aiming to be 
Shakespeare, they succeed in being nobody at all. If 
they would quit straining at the heroic and the historical, 
kick Tennyson and all other models into the middle 
of next week, or elsewhere, and if they would content 
themselves with the homely, and come right down to the 
soil that gave them birth, they might do something. 
My judgment, which may be very valuable, for aught 
I know, is, that when a man thinks the afflatus is in 
him, his first business is to let books rigorously alone; 
his next, second, last, and only business is to go straight 
to mother nature, get in her lap, look deeply in her 
beautiful eyes, and listen finely to her voice (whispering 
to him alone), and then tell what he has seen and heard 
as simply and as musically as he can. Heretofore 
Southern poets have coveted the approbation of scurvy 
Yankee newspapers, and followed Yankee models, oh, 
shame! in order to gain it. One of the compensations 
of this frightful war is the deliverance of our literature 
from this bondage, and the birth of a school of poets 
truly Southern. Already Hayne, Thompson (J. R.), 
Timrod, and Randall have given us heroic songs, 
which belong to us and to us alone — born as they are 
of the inspiration bequeathed by martyred patriots — 
legacy priceless and immortal — and copied after no 
models. Better is yet to come, when time shall have 
hallowed and glorified the men and deeds of these 
88 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

fateful days. Who will sing Stonewall Jackson's 
elegy ? 

On the road from the mill — here, since this piece 
is to be as rambling and parenthetical as any Sterne 
ever wrote — let me stop a bit. The little one-story- 
and-a-half dwelling-house near the mill would make 
an exquisite pencil sketch or painting in water colors 
or in oil; it is one of myriads in Virginia. Porte 
Crayon had an eye for the grand and the comic, also 
a little imagination. He did partial justice to her 
mountain scenery, to the Dismal Swamp the indig- 
enous beings of the rural districts, and the Virginia 
nigger in his manifold variety, from the conceited 
carriage-driver to the fat cook and the little black boy 
blowing a "blarther;" but he had no eye for the beau- 
ties of Virginia homes. Is it a marvel he deserted to 
the Yankees? Whoso will, let him partake freely of 
the moral conveyed in this digression. 

On the road from the mill to Uncle Flatback's there 
is a beautifully secluded and delightful bridge. Big 
trees, dressed with wild, luxuriant vines, bend over and 
frame it in from the workday, cornfield world on either 
hand. It is a matter of life and death to cross this 
bridge except on foot, and its use as a crossing for ve- 
hicle§ has long since been abandoned. The neighbors 
who used to patronize the mill abuse Patrick Jackson, 
the mill-owner, for not repairing the bridge, and Patrick 
Jackson, in turn, abuses the neighbors for not furnish- 
ing the timber. Both parties, I think, deserve leather 
medals for being gloriously lazy Virginians, willing 
rather to let things rot, and break the legs of horses 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

and the necks of niggers, than to get into a Yankee 
stew and a New England fease the moment anything 
needs mending, and to work madly over every crack 
and fissure, as if godliness consisted in patching, and 
the world would be blotted out of existence the moment 
it ceased to smell of newly sawed pine and fresh varnish. 
For my part, I hope the Ijridge will never be mended, 
but stay just as it is until the bumbler-bees — humble- 
bees? not any, I thank you — I speak Virginian, not 
the lingo of Bosting, or even of Ingling (perhaps you'd 
like for me to say England. I be blamed if I do) — 
until the bumbler-bees, and other borers, reduce it to 
wood-dust and scatter it atom by atom into the stream. 
As long as the bridge is in its present breakneck con- 
dition. Uncle Flatback's plantation will not be a thor- 
oughfare for everybody who wants to take a short cut 
from the plank road to the old stage road to Rich- 
mond. I hate a place that is continually enlivened and 
afflicted by people travelling vaguely about in shackly 
buggies that can run along a road no broader than a 
hog path. There is no peace, no sense of ownership in 
such a place as that. You might as well have no 
place at all. The hands in the field are always stopping 
to look at these wandering vehicles, the axles of which 
invariably creak loud enough to be heard half a mile 
off. Like as not they'll break down right at your door, 
and the people will be sure to stay all night, and the 
unclean-nosed child in the buggy (there is always one 
of them) will give your children the itch or the measles, 
and the black girl who rides behind the buggy will 
make herself generally obnoxious by fascinating the 
90 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

boy that brings wood into the house. Even if the 
fugitive buggy don't break down, from the moment 
it heaves in sight, everybody in the house, the kitchen, 
and tlie quarters is in a fever of uncertainty as to whose 
buggy it is; and as it comes up slowly, a half -hour or 
more is wasted in conflicting and vain conjectures, until 
it passes by — the man, woman, child, servant, and horse 
all staring stupidly at you and all your folks, who are 
staring stupidly at them; and when the plaguy thing 
is gone and quiet is once more restored, its horrid 
creaking leaves you with a toothache and a crick in the 
neck, and starts old Ring, who ought to have been 
dead long ago, to howling, until you are mad enough to 
beat his brains out with the fishing-pole which you 
have been peacefully trimming. I am not lacking 
in the natural instinct of hospitality, but, Virginian 
as I am, if I had a place, by jingo! there should not be 
a gate in it — nothing but drawbars twenty poles high, 
and each pole fastened with ten thousand knots of the 
strongest, biggest, stiffest, roughest, and hand tearingest 
grape-vine I could find. The labyrinth of Crete would 
be a "main, plain road" compared to my place, and 
the labors of Sisyphus wouldn't be a circumstance to the 
labor of getting through it. As for bridges, I wouldn't 
have one, unless it was two hundred years old and half 
gone when it was first built. A log, a round, slippery 
log, with the bark off, fastened high up in the crotch 
of a tall tree on this side, and stuck in the crotch of 
a still taller tree on the other side of the creek, is a good 
enough bridge for me. If people want to see me, 
let 'em swim like Leander, or wade like Cousin Sally 
91 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

Dillard. Maybe I'll have a "cunner" for them I 
like best, but further than that I will not go — no, I 
will not — ^you needn't ask me. 

Many pleasant evening strolls I have had to the old 
bridge, all by myself, leaning over the bewhittled and 
name-graven railing, thinking thoughts and dreaming 
dreams till the evening star arose and the whippoor- 
will began his chant. But the water under the bridge 
is not clear as crystal, swift as an arrow, and spar- 
kling as a stream of diamonds — fit abode for Naiads 
and Undines — but muddy as the telegraphic despatches 
from Mississippi before the fall of Vicksburg, slow as 
an army wagon or a conscript making a charge, and 
full of all manner of nasty and confounded "mud- 
kittens," "snap'n turtles," and snake-doctors. Still, 
I love to go there and look by the hour, not at the 
plague-taked water, but at the pendent vines, the in- 
tricate emerald umbrage cut daintily upon the azure 
ground of the sky, the many-shaped clouds, the ravish- 
ing dyes of sunset, and fancying what a great fellow I 
might be if I only had money enough to quit writing 
nonsense and stick resolutely to poetry and romance. 

As you go from George Daniel's — I think I'd better 
write it Dannill's, that's the way Virginians pronounce 
the name — as you go from George Dannill's land to 
Unc' Jim's, the road runs close to the river bank, 
and through a dense growth of bushes, which, in former 
years, when the carriage could go on the bridge, and 
I used to go with Aunt Mary and Cousin Betsy to 
church, gave us no end of trouble; for if we dodged from 
one side of the carriage to the other, to keep the intrud- 
92 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

ing branches from scratching our eyes out, we were 
sure to encounter a set of branches still longer and more 
insolent, besides skinning our elbows — no small calam- 
ity to a body with as plump, fine arms as Betsy's — 
against the brass buttons by which the carriage curtains 
were fastened. Unc' Jim never had the address and 
hardihood to clear up this thicket, or to prune the 
pugnacious branches. So, Sunday after Sunday we 
had to run the gantlet and display our agility in dodg- 
ing around a space not much larger than the inside of a 
coffee-pot — for the carriage was a Yankee carriage, as 
scrimp, meagre, and rickety as the cheap and wretched 
souls that made it. Woodson, the carriage-driver, 
when struggling through this bushy maze, used to 
imitate the most diflBcult feats of the ancient gymnast 
or modern India-rubber man of the circus, by tying 
himself into a double-bow-knot, and placing the top 
of his head on the bottom of the foot-board, so that 
only the small of his back and the tips of his knee-pans 
were visible. Since the " bustid " condition of the bridge 
has made church-going by the Jackson's mill route 
impossible, the thicket has been left to its own wild 
will, and has become as impenetrable as the abattis 
which Hooker vainly erected in the Wilderness. Well, 
I am not sorry. Trees, as I said before, are living souls; 
I love to see 'em grow, and it hurts me to see them 
destroyed merely to make room for people to pass. 
Why, I would like to know, can't we treat them as 
politely as we do other gentlemen of high standing? 
One vacation old Hart cut down a dead apple tree 
that grew by the fence which enclosed the playground 
93 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

at Edgehill. I saw the gap the moment I got back, 
and felt as if one of the boys had died. When Uncle 
Jim cut down the pines between the house and Israel 
Hill simply to get a better look at the train as it passed, 
it seemed to me as cruel and unwise, as if a tyrant had 
destroyed a fine army merely to get a view of a fast 
woman. I detest clearings and tree murderers of all 
sorts. The sight of a new ground makes me as mad 
as the devil. To kill a forest in order to raise a weed 
— tobacco — is to me the very climax of crime and folly. 
The depraved and irrational salivary glands of the 
human race have a vast deal of sin to answer for. 
They have played Mother Earth the same vile trick 
Lot's sons played on him; they have uncovered her 
nakedness; nay, worse, they have heaped hickory 
ashes and many chunks of burnt "bresh" upon her 
fair bosom, all for the sake of getting something bitter 
and dirty and dauby to make 'em spit, and keep on 
spitting the livelong day. Isn't it horrible ? 

Not a word — none of your sneers, gibes, retorts, and 
"physician heal thyself." I do smoke; nay, to my 
shame be it admitted, I even chaw a little. I own I am 
as bad as any of you. But that doesn't make tobacco 
any cleaner or the clearing of new grounds less murder- 
ous. You see you can't make anything out of me 
by your rejoinders and argumenta ad hominem. Cease, 
therefore, and throw that villanous plug in your coat- 
tail away, and don't clap the crumbs into your mouth 
in a moment of forgetfulness. 

The fence that divides Dannill's land from Flat- 
back's had a gate just beyond the thicket before men- 
94 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

tioned, and the staples — that's the name, I believe — of 
that gate, are driven savagely into the trunk of a young 
and very pretty beech-tree. Who was the unfeeling 
wretch that did this act of vandalism ? Would that I 
had him by the Adam's apple or the scruff of the neck. 
Bad enough to treat an innocent lad of a tree in this 
way, but to make a gate-post of a historical tree is 
outrageous. On the bark of this beautiful beech-tree 
the letters J. R. are cut, and John Randolph of Roanoke 
is said to have cut them with his own hand. The tra- 
dition may be apocryphal, but yonder is "Bizarre," 
scarcely half a mile away, where Randolph lived for 
some years after his brother Richard's death — by the 
way, you know that Dick was a greater man than 
Jack Randolph, just as Bobus was greater than Sidney 
Smith — the same may be said of the almost unknown 
brothers of many eminent men — and our maltreated 
beech is on the road to "Sandy Ford," the mansion of 
the Dillons, famous in the old times for its hospitality, 
and a favorite resort of Randolph's. It is not at all 
impossible that, coming home from Dillon's, flown 
with, not insolence, but fried chicken and wine, and 
ruminating sadly on the certainty of his leaving no 
posterity behind him, he may have stopped his horse, 
and left his name to be perpetuated by this lusty young 
tree, which (albeit the gloomy engraver has been moul- 
dering in his grave for many long years), seems hardly 
to have attained its adolescence. 

After you leave Randolph's tree, there is nothing of 
interest on the road to old Flatback's — unless it be 
a muddy horse-pond under a little sycamore — until 
95 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

you come to the spring. It is a splendid spring, ex- 
cept in very wet weather, when the back-water of the 
Appomattox chokes it up, and it tastes of its own moss. 
It is shaded by oaks and elms — magnificent old fellows, 
that would set Virgil crazy were he to see them, and 
throw him into a bucolic equal to an attack of Asiatic 
cholera. Tityrus never recubed under anything com- 
parable to them. It is a fine thing of a hot summer day 
to sit under these noble trees, recline your head against 
their mighty boles, and muse sweetly for a few minutes, 
until a caravan of gigantic black or red pismires begin 
a pilgrimage up your backbone — for the Virginia ant, 
as you are well aware, has a choice knack of getting 
under the "body-linen," as old folks call it, which sets 
wristbands and collar-buttons at defiance. 

Hard by this spring there are some utilitarian fixtures 
which disclose the indifference of the true Virginian 
to aesthetics, and knock the sense of the beautiful on 
the very head effectually. They are fixtures used at 
hog-killing time. There are the rocks that are heated 
to put in the water that scalds their hair off. There 
is the pole on which the hogs are hung by the hind legs to 
be disembowelled. There they are, close to the spring 
of sweet water and right under that elm, the equal of 
which is not in all Virginia. You are a man of imagi- 
nation, of course, and whenever you look at that pole, 
you see the naked porcine corpses hanging down, 
with a great gash in front, and a corn-cob in the open 
bloody mouth of each of them; and every time you 
look at these rocks, you smell burnt hair and feel bristles, 
and remember, as if it were yesterday, the first night 
96 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

you ever saw the plantation Crispin making low-quar- 
ter stitch-downs, and how funny it was to see a man 
sewing with two threads at the same time. 

There are some jugs of milk of both kinds — sweet 
milk and buttermilk — in the spring-house, and Ada 
will be here presently to carry them to the house, for 
Aunt Mary is going to give us green-apple tart to-day; 
but the place reminds us of the hogs, so let's get away 
to the thicket of plum and thorn bushes, just over the 
grassy knoll above us. Double up your coat for a 
pillow and lie down awhile, and I'll tell you something. 
You see that old tobacco-house yonder? You do. 
Well, do you know that in all the Southern novels and 
poems that I ever read or heard of, there is not a line 
about tilted and sway-back old tobacco-houses or about 
plum bushes or thorn bushes ? And do you know that I 
think there is a deal of romance and of poetry in these 
things ? Why, the thorn bush is the home of the night- 
ingale — did you know that? No, you know nothing 
and care less about these very romantic things! I 
knew you didn't. You are Virginian, and, since child- 
hood, you have ceased to care about plums — wild plums, 
I mean. You say the skin is bitter and the things get 
squashy as soon as they are ripe. You think thorn 
bushes were made especially to furnish negroes with 
vegetable buttons to fasten "galluses" by, and as for 
old tobacco-houses, you are too busy making new ones 
to think about them at all. Very well, sir, if these 
are your prosaic views, you can just get up from under 
Uncle Flatback's pretty plum bushes and go with me 
to dinner, and eat butter-beans until you burst — fit end 
for you, you miserable materialist. 
97 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

As we go by the kitchen and the quarters, I shall not 
allow you to talk with Malindy, who is cooking for the 
hands, or with Polly — for dinner is late — or with Locky, 
who is ironing like mad — she is a real steam-engine, 
Locky is — you shall interrupt nobody, but go straight 
along into the yard and do your best to appease the ire 
of Uncle Flatback, who threatens momentarily to "skin 
the head" of Liza and Gary Ann, if they don't "hurry 
up that mush." As for me, I will go into the garden. 

No, I am not going to read you a long rigmarole 
about the garden — not if I can help it — although, on 
the principle of praising the bridge, I ought to do so; 
for many and many a good meal this garden has fur- 
nished me. It is an unpretentious garden; has no 
palings, you see; only a rail fence. The reason of this 
is this — Uncle Flatback rents the place, and won't go 
to any unnecessary expense about it. If he owned it, 
he would fix up things nicely enough; but, like every 
true Virginian, he has been on the eve of moving to 
Alabama, or Mississippi, or Texas, ever since he first 
came here — twenty years ago. Butter-beans, snaps, 
green peas, beets, cabbage, and a few flowers make 
up the contents of the garden; other vegetables, such 
as tomatoes, onions, black-eye peas, cymlings, and 
"rosin" ears, being grown here and there, first in this 
and then in that patch, in various parts of the plantation 
— a curious and peculiar feature of old-fashioned Vir- 
ginian management. 

About gardens and orchards — by the way, there is no 
orchard at Mountain View, because, in the first place, 
Uncle Flatback is afraid his apples and peaches might 
be made into liquor of some sort, and in the second 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

place, he is continually going to go to Texas or else- 
where — about gardens, orchards, clover and wheat 
fields, there is something to be said which I have never 
yet heard said, namely: they are (to me at least) proofs 
of the existence, wisdom, and goodness of Deity, better 
and more convincing than Paley's watch, or any other 
argument from design ever excogitated by the philoso- 
phers. Just think how ready to the hand all fruits, 
vegetables, and grains grow. Suppose you had to plant 
a ladder against the pole every time you wanted to get 
a dish of snaps, or to send a man up in a balloon to get 
your apples, or to cut through trees two feet thick, in 
order to harvest a crop of corn, or to sink a shaft when- 
ever you had sweet-potatoes for dinner. What a hard 
old world to live in this would be, if a man had to blast 
out his turnips, or make use of a patent Yankee stump- 
puller to get at each separate head of clover, or to 
worry his asparagus out of the earth with the aid of a 
jack-screw! Then how easy it is to shell peas and peel 
peaches; why, you can mash soft peaches with your 
mouth, without peeling them at all. Think what in- 
tolerable botheration it would be to crack open water- 
melons with a sledge-hammer, or to saw through pea- 
hulls as you do cocoanuts. Pursue the idea, my friend, 
and the next time you see a cucumber, or a pumpkin, 
or cymling lying invitingly on the ground, as much as 
to say "here I am, ready for you," thank the Lord for 
all his goodness. 

The garden looks toward the railroad, and on both 
sides of the railroad you see a number of negro cab- 
ins, which you can take to be Uncle Flatback's 
99 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

quarters. No such thing. They are relics of a grand 
experiment at emancipation made some forty or fifty 
years ago by Dick Randolph. Like most of the men 
of his day, Dick throught slavery a great evil, and at 
his death manumitted his negroes, gave them plenty 
of tolerably fertile, well-timbered, and well-watered 
land, parcelled it off into small farms, gave them stock- 
farm implements, etc. The negroes looked upon their 
landed estate as new Canaan, and called it "Israel 
Hill," by which name it goes to this day. They had 
the advantage of years of slavery, which civilized and 
Christianized them; habituated them to labor and 
taught them the mode of raising crops. They had, 
moreover, the advice and assistance of white neighbors, 
all of whom, at first, regarded the scheme with scarcely 
less favor than Randolph himself, and were disposed 
to aid the negroes in any and every way possible. The 
experiment was fairly made. Its failure was signal. 

In this year of grace, 1862, the population of Israel 
Hill is scarcely so great as it was forty or fifty years 
ago, when the inhabitants entered the new Canaan. 
Had they remained slaves, their numbers would have 
been quadrupled. As it is, they will doubtless die out 
in the course of a few years and disappear, as they have 
done in Gerrit Smith's and so many other Yankee ex- 
periments at colonizing free negroes. One or two of the 
Israel Hill families exhibit in their abodes and crops 
some capacity for self-improvement; the rest are thrift- 
less, to say the least. Men and women alike earn a 
precarious subsistence, laying up nothing and spending 
much of their earnings in drink. One of their number, 
100 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

the patriarch of the Hill, old Uncle Sam White, now 
considerably more than one hundred years of age, is so 
remarkable that a bare outline of his character would 
require a separate article. A more honest, upright 
man, a more truly pious and devoted Christian, cannot 
be found in this whole Confederacy, A cheerful old 
man, his laugh, as he walks along the railroad and 
stops to speak with his acquaintances, may be heard 
for half a mile. He is, withal, a gentleman of the old 
school, full of a century ago, in the house of his aristo- 
cratic master; and, previous to the war, while wine was 
yet attainable, never failed to set his decanter out when 
you entered his humble cabin. No man, white or 
black, is more respected in his neighborhood than this 
genial, honest. Godly minded old man ; and when he goes 
to his long home, as he must soon do, there will be 
more regret for his loss among the whites than among 
the people of his own color. 

Let me now come back, if I possibly can, to Mountain 
View, and close this discursive and tiresome article 
with a brief account of old Flatback himself. He is 
the son of a lieutenant of the American Revolution, who 
entered the ranks as a private, and fought through the 
war, and bore upon his person the mark of an honorable 
wound. This son of his served in the War of '12, as 
a private in the Virginia line, marched from the Valley 
to Ellicott's Mill, but was never in any engagement. 
True to their parentage, his sons have played a manly 
part in the great struggle against the North. When the 
war broke out, one of them was in Texas. He hurried 
home, joined Garnett's command, and, by the acci- 
101 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

dental discharge of a pistol, fell at Rich Mountain, 
before the disastrous battle at that place occurred. The 
other has been in the war from the beginning, and, 
if he is alive, is still a private in Stuart's cavalry. I 
am told that the Prince Edward troop, raised by the 
gifted and ill-fated Thornton, contains no better soldier 
and no greater favorite, than William Flatback. 

With all his eccentricities of dress and behavior, 
old Governor Flatback — he is called governor in com- 
pliment to his real or fancied authority over his nearest 
neighbors, the sable residents of Israel Hill — is greatly 
liked and respected. The young men, and the old as 
well, of the neighboring village, are never tired of joking 
him about his temperance hobby, his belief in the me- 
dicinal virtues of white-oak bark, and many other odd 
notions. He takes a joke generally in good part, and 
is not unskilful in returning the rough compliments of 
his assailants, but is at times quite hot-tempered and 
excitable — which makes the fun of teasing him all the 
more pleasant to his persecutors. 

Besides being a great temperance and white-oak bark 
man, he is a great raiser of watermelons and cornfield 
peas. It was at his house that I was first made ac- 
quainted with the superlative virtues of that peculiar 
variety of the cornfield pea known as the "grey crowd- 
er"; and as for his melons, their fame has gone forth 
to the ends of the earth — with slight limitations. In 
addition to these claims to greatness, he was, in his 
youth, a mighty fox-hunter, owned the best pack of 
hounds in the country, and bred and trained a series of 
the most remarkable dogs, all named "Redcoat," that 
102 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK S PLANTATION 

ever lived. Le Roi est mort; vive le Roi. The dog 
died, but Redcoat survived. When the first Redcoat 
expired his son fell heir to the title, and so on for I 
know not how many years. In the same way there was 
a succession of terriers named Bob, the property of the 
governor's second son, James, who died, as before 
stated, at Rich Mountain. The last Bob, a sober-sided, 
gentlemanly dog, who travelled with his master to Kan- 
sas and back, may be seen to this day at Mountain 
View, a mournful reminder of the generous-hearted 
young man who loved him so fondly, for whose sake 
he is cherished and petted to the serious detriment of 
his health — for overfeeding has produced a cutaneous 
disease that worries him incessantly, and has made 
him gnaw nearly all the hair off his hind quarters. 
To tell the wonders performed by the Redcoat lineage 
would require a volume. If my Uncle Flatback's fond 
memory may be trusted, no such dogs ever lived before, 
or ever will live hereafter. Lightning on four legs 
might rival their speed; anything less fleet they could 
distance easily. Like the lama of Peru, mentioned by 
the showman, who "travels at the rate of forty miles 
a minute — pigeon tied to his tail can't keep up" — 
they were considered as rather rapid than otherwise. 
With regard to their noses, it is enough to state that 
they did not consider a trail cold until it was six weeks 
old and ploughed up at that. The music of their 
voices was so exquisite that Uncle Flatback declares it 
invariably cured him of a raging toothache, or lockjaw, 
or hydrophobia, or some such infirmity to which he 
was subject in his hunting days. 
103 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

It remains only to speak of Governor Flatback's 
kindly heart and open-handedness and this is no easy 
task to one who has experienced so much of both as the 
writer of this fatiguing sketch. To say that he is 
hospitable, after the good old fashion of Virginia hos- 
pitality, is to praise him but lightly, for that virtue is 
still common to all who inhabit the Old Dominion. 
But the assertion so often and so falsely made of many 
men, that no one in want ever left his door empty- 
handed, is literally true in his case. His family, like 
himself, seem never so happy as when they are perform- 
ing some friendly and generous deed. Nor is theirs 
a half-way performance. I will give a single instance 
in proof of the whole-souled way of doing things in the 
Flatback household. 

Late one evening, about five years ago, my aunt 
came running to the house in great alarm. She had 
been frightened by a strange-looking man who was 
approaching the house. This man soon made his 
appearance. He was a sight to see, indeed. A mass 
of rags saturated with water enveloped an emaciated 
frame, and under an immense shock of matted hair 
peered forth a haggard face, the picture of death. He 
was a poor Irishman, making his way on foot to a dis- 
tant city. While trudging the railroad he had been 
taken ill, had applied at various houses for lodging, and 
had been refused, no doubt because of his frightful 
appearance. In this condition he had been forced to 
lie out in the rain for two consecutive nights; had 
dragged his way to Israel Hill, where the negroes 
directed him to Governor Flatback's, as perhaps the 
104 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK'S PLANTATION 

only place in which he would be sure of finding a 
shelter. 

Most people would have been satisfied with giving 
the poor man supper and a night's lodging; but this 
was not the Flatback way of doing things. The next 
morning he would have pursued his journey. No; 
the Flatbacks would not hear of it; he must stay until 
his clothes were washed, and until he got stronger. 
James Flatback took him in charge, gave him a good 
bath, cut his long, tangled hair, rigged him from the 
skin out in a suit of his own clothes, filled his pipe with 
good tobacco, and put him in the yard under a tree to 
dry. I never saw a man so improved. He had an 
honest, intelligent face, and sat under the tree in a state 
of high enjoyment. 

No sooner had he finished smoking than a big 
Flatback watermelon was pressed upon him, and this, 
of course, brought on an attack of the ague and fever, 
which had seized him some days before. He was put 
to bed, treated with calomel and quinine, and very 
soon got upon his legs again. But the chills had hardly 
subsided before a galloping consumption came on, and 
we expected every day to see him die. It was pro- 
nounced by a competent physician a case of genuine 
pulmonary phthisis, and no one expected him to live. 
The poor fellow suffered horribly. As he lay in the 
little room adjoining my uncle's chamber it was fearful, 
during the paroxysms of expectoration, to hear him 
alternately cursing and praying for death to release 
him from his pangs. 

Brandy (in spite of old Flatback's prejudices against 
105 



MY UNCLE FLATBACK's PLANTATION 

liquor), cod-liver oil, and whatever else was needed, 
was supplied ad libitum, and six weeks after, to our 
utter amazement, Paddy rallied and gave unmistak- 
able evidence of an intention to live. He did live. 
Skilful treatment, good nursing, and generous living 
cured him, and for three years he occupied the little 
room next to my uncle's, working whenever it suited 
him, and entertaining Governor Flatback, who be- 
came very fond of him, with stories of his adventurous 
life, with recitations of poetry, and with a never-failing 
flow of Irish humor. Soon after the war broke out 
he joined the army, became one of Jackson's "foot 
cavalry," was in the great campaign of the Valley, from 
McDowell to Fort Republic, got wounded in the battles 
before Richmond, visited Mountain View during his con- 
valescence, received a hearty welcome, and returned to 
his command, where he is to this day, for aught I know. 
Such are the Flatbacks. If they had not over- 
whelmed me time and again with kindness; if the 
patience of people who read were inexhaustible, and 
if paper were as cheap as the Flatbacks are generous, 
I should make it a point to allude to them, casually 
at least, if not favorably and at length. As it is, I 
must dismiss them with a simple "God bless 'em," 
as a people too warm-hearted and unworldly for serious 
notice in so brief and pointed an article as this. But 
if time, Yankees, Confederate taxes, and things gen- 
erally, spare me, I intend some day to do them justice, 
and to make the Flatbacks and myself as famous as 
Willis's Mountain, Beard's Old Tavern, or the Masonic 
Hall in Curdsville. 

106 



IV 

MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

TT rE do not marry our own wives! We marry the 
^ ^ wives of somebody, of anybody else, and any- 
body or somebody else marries our wives. It may 
sound very funny and very silly to say this, but it is 
the plain, hard truth, and nine out of ten married men 
will, in their secret souls, admit it. I repeat it, we 
don't marry our own wives; and all the lawyers, legis- 
lators, judges, jurists, statesmen, philosophers, physi- 
ologists, and phrenologists on earth can't make us do 
it, if we chose. And I believe we would choose, for 
I have a good opinion of human nature. This is a 
puzzle for the spirit-rappers — a riddle which even the 
Fourierites cannot solve. Speculation, ratiocination, 
imagination, no mental faculty or process will avail us 
here. I doubt if that " internal apperception at a depth 
within the penetralia of consciousness to which Kant 
never descended," of which Cousin boasts, will mend 
the matter. But the reason is very plain to me. It 
was not intended for us to marry our own wives; " God's 
last best gift is reserved" unto another higher life; 
elsewise this earthly existence would of itself be heaven. 
And now you know what I mean by "wife." Not 
107 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

merely your wedded spouse and lawful mother of 
your children, but that woman-soul, fashioned by 
God himself as the one only partner and complement 
of your soul; truly the "better half" of your inmost 
self; with whom you are perfect man, without whom 
you are but an unhappy segment, more or less dimly 
conscious and complaining of your incompleteness. 
You see I am a believer in the exploded theory of 
"matches made in heaven." Yes, I am; for I have 
seen four such matches in my life, and I do not ex- 
aggerate when I say that, for them, the millenium 
has already come. But I have been lucky; for such 
matches are exceedingly rare, most people never having 
seen them at all. 

Not only do we not marry our own wives, but fre- 
quently we never so much as see them, or, if we do 
see them, don't know them. On the other hand, a 
man may see his wife and know her to be his wife, 
but his wife may not know him, may never know 
him in this life; vice versa, the wife may know her 
husband and never be known by the husband, and so 
on. I wish to record my experience on this subject; 
and if I do so in a somewhat frivolous style, it must 
not be inferred that I am not in earnest; the inference 
might be false — " many a true word is spoken in jest." 

It follows, or may follow, from what has been said, 
that we are all married. Yes, that is my opinion. 
Now, in the eye of the law and of society, I am a 
bachelor, with every prospect of reihaining a bach- 
elor; but in point of fact, and in the eye of reason, 
I am a married man — just as much of a married man 
108 



as Brigham Young is; the only difference between 
us being that his wives are visible, or to speak phil- 
osophically, phenomenal, while my wife is not, ex- 
cept, as before said, in the eye of reason — particu- 
larly my reason. I say again, and most emphatically, I 
am a married man; I say so because I know my wife, 
that is, I know her name and have seen her twice. 
I have never been introduced to her, never spoke a 
word to her in the whole course of my life, and never 
expect to. She doesn't know me from a side of sole- 
leather, probably never heard of me; and if I were 
to go to her and tell her she was my wife (which is the 
fact) would have me put in jail or a mad-house. But, 
poor thing! that's no fault of hers (she being entirely 
ignorant of my theory, and of the eye of reason also), 
and she is my wife, to the contrary notwithstanding. 

The first time, which was the next to the last time, 
I ever saw her was about three years ago — three years 
ago exactly, next February. It was in the town of 
Plantationton — a little, old, drowsy town situated on 
the banks of a little muddy river, with a long, ugly 
Indian name. The stage in which I was travelling at 
the eventful time stopped in Plantationton, and the 
stage-passengers dined there in a rusty old tavern, 
with a big, worm-eaten porch, and a gangrenous, 
cracked bell. I got out of the stage, feeling very 
cramped-up and dirty, and straightway betook my- 
self to a tin basin (there were half a dozen more on 
the old, hacked-up bench), full of clear, cold spring- 
water, by the help of which and a piece of sticky tur- 
pentine soap I managed to make a very respectable 
109 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

ablution. My face washed, I applied it for a few min- 
utes to a long, greasy, ragged old linen towel that 
hung up on a roller fastened to a scabby, old weather- 
boarding; then I parted my hair with the half of an 
old horn comb that was tied to a string, and smoothed 
it with a little, old wiry, worn-out hair-brush that was 
tied to another string; and then I was ready for dinner, 
which was not yet ready for me. Pending dinner, I 
sat down in a split-bottomed chair, elevated my heels, 
leaned back, took out my knife, and commenced paring 
my nails. I had seen the little old town frequently 
before, and didn't care to see it again, especially on a 
miserable, gummy, cloudy, damp, chilly day in Febru- 
ary, and so confined my attention for some time to my 
fingers, of which I am rather proud. But, fortunately 
for me, I heard an old fellow behind me say, "By 
dads! she's beautiful"; and looking up, saw the young 
lady alluded to. I wish to Heaven I had never looked 
down! She was standing exactly opposite me, in the 
front door of a dried-up wooden store; her head was 
turned up the street, as if she was looking for somebody, 
and her little foot was patting the sill with the sauciest, 
sweetest impatience imaginable. That young lady was 
my wife! I didn't know it then, but I know it now. 

She was beautiful — bewitchingly beautiful — so beau- 
tiful that for a long time I did not know I was looking 
at her — didn't know I was looking at anything — didn't 
know anything. The joy of her presence was flowing 
in one uninterrupted stream through all the avenues of 
sense, and it was not until my soul became full to 
the brim of her beauty that I could say I saw at all. 
110 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

Whether she was dressed in silk, barege, delaine, or calico 
I could never tell, and never cared; I remember only 
her little bonnet of simple straw — neat, trim, and vastly 
becoming, as the bonnets of pretty women always are. 
She was young — not more than eighteen — rather above 
the medium height; of round and perfect figure; her 
hair was golden and her eyes were blue; her complex- 
ion pure as light itself, fresh as the dew, and glowing 
as the dawn. She must have felt the many eyes feed- 
ing on her cheek and brow, for she turned presently, 
and how instantly the impatient little foot disappeared, 
how archly modest the smile that illumined her lightly 
blushing face! I could read her character at a glance. 
She was warm, and tender, and true; good, wise, merry, 
healthy, happy, sweet-tempered, willing, patient, loving, 
tidy, thrifty, and sincere, and everything a wife ought to 
be or could be. Why didn't I know she was my wife ? 
W^hy didn't she come over and tell me so? Alas! we 
were both blind — and she remains so still! 

There I sat, drinking my fill of beauty — inhaling 
bliss at every breath. How little did she dream of 
what was going on in my soul! How could she tell 
that her radiant image was effacing all other images 
from my heart, to be itself effaced for a time, but 
only to reappear in the hallowing and charming hues 
of memory — the one solitary and sufficing ideal of my 
unblessed life! She saw me gazing at her, but only 
as she had seen hundreds gaze before. 

A primrose, 'mid the tavern's stir, 
A yellow primrose was to her, 
And it was nothing more. 
Ill 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

I was only a sallow-faced young man, with a black 
mustache and a deal of impudence. I didn't look 
like her husband a bit; but I was her husband for all 
that — I know I was. 

Fair reader, let us here moralize a little. But no; 
I am not good at that, and, besides, I am too prolix 
anyway. Yet remember, beautiful maiden, and be 
watchful of your looks; for, all unknown to yourself, 
you may be shaping for life, and perhaps for life be- 
yond life, the destiny of some ill-looking biped who 
glares at you from the opposite side of the street! 

All the other stage-passengers, and all the tobacco- 
spitting loungers about the tavern, were gazing at her 
as well as myself; she knew it, too — the little rogue ! — and 
was pleased, as she ought to have been. She ceased 
to look for that somebody up the street, who never 
came, and stole a sweet, bright glance toward us, as if 
to say, "I can't help being pretty, indeed I can't. I 
am glad you think me so, and you may look as long 
as you please; I sha'n't charge you anything." 

Bless her sweet little soul! Every man on that 
porch ought to have bent his knee in homage to so 
much beauty and goodness. 

But the confounded dinner-bell rang, and the beasts 
in broadcloth rushed to their food just as any other 
beasts would have done. I am ashamed to confess it, 
but a most unromantic sense of propriety smote me 
the moment I heard that accursed bell. "It is out of 
the question," said I to myself, "for you to be staring 
that young lady out of countenance; get right up and 
go to your dinner. It is true, you may never see so 
112 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

beautiful a face again, but then, you know, your health 
is delicate, and it won't do to neglect so important a 
meal as dinner. You have a long and wearisome ride 
before you; besides, she don't care anything for you, and 
even if she did, you are in no condition to marry." 

Thus did mere animal cravings prevail against the 
sweet appeals of beauty; and thus (as the last clause 
of my mental argumentation abundantly shows) did 
my mind unconsciously refuse to entertain the possi- 
bility of a rejection, and so assert the truth of the 
statement I have made, namely, that she was my wife. 
The world will call this vanity, but I call it intuition 
or spontaneous, unconscious apperception. With great 
reluctance I rose as if to go; she saw that all except 
myself had gone, but still stood in the front door of that 
dried-up old store, patting the sill once more with the 
tip of her tiny little slipper. She was so good that she 
could not refuse to gladden even one poor mortal with 
the light of her blessed countenance. It flashed across 
my mind that I might save fifty cents by missing my 
dinner; avarice had come to the aid of beauty, and I 
sat down again. But hunger (yes, miserable human 
that I am, it was hunger) defeated them both. 

Ah! if I had only known then as much as I know 
now, how differently I would have acted. I would 
have dismissed the contemptible subject of dinner, 
and, having summoned a waiter, would have addressed 
him thus: "Boy, do you see that old red trunk in the 
boot of the stage yonder? Well, just take that trunk 
off; I am so pleased with your lovely village that I in- 
tend to stay here until I get married." The young lady 
113 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

on the opposite side of the street would have heard me; 
it would have produced a deep impression on her (and 
first impressions, you know, are everything); I would 
have remained in my seat until the young lady left; I 
would have eaten my dinner in peace; afterward I 
would have donned my new doeskin breeches and my 
new black coat; then, by hook or by crook, I would 
have procured an introduction to my wife; and after a 
while I would have married her — there's no doubt 
about it. Although I was poor, her beauty and her 
love would have made me rich ; my love for her would 
have made me strong and able to work; by this time I 
would have acquired a standing in society — I would 
have been happy. 

But I sold my wife for a mess of pottage — I went 
in to dinner. When I reached the door of the dining- 
room I hesitated, went back to the porch, and com- 
menced gazing at my wife as before. She saw me, 
and gave me a smile; upon my honor she did. It was 
the sweetest smile I ever received. I may have valued 
smiles before, but it is certain I have never valued one 
since. Whatever made me return to the dining-room 
after receiving so great a favor I could never remember. 
It was so fated. I did go back to the dining-room, 
hurried through my dinner, which had become cold and 
indigestible, and hurried back to the porch. She had 
gone ! 

The stage was waiting for me; I jumped in, and it 

rattled out of the little old town. We had not gone 

many miles before the consequences of hasty eating 

brought on a terrible attack of dyspepsia. I became 

114 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

painfully aware that I had lost my dinner and my 
fifty cents; but I did not know I had lost my wife — 
/ forgot her! I was returning, after a long absence, 
to my native city, to enter upon a new and untried pro- 
fession; and there were a thousand things to occupy 
my attention, to the exclusion, not only of wives, but 
even of sweethearts. So I lost my wife and didn't 
know it! And so, I imagine, most of us lose our wives. 
About a year and a half afterward; that is, about 
one year ago, having failed in business, as an aimless, 
unmarried — that is, phenomenally unmarried — man is 
very apt to do; though it doesn't make much difference 
if such a man does fail, especially after he has lost his 
wife — having failed in business, I say, and having 
nothing to do, I returned to Plantationton, not in the 
stage, but in the cars, the railroad having been in the 
meantime completed. So completely had my wife 
gone out of my mind, that I did not once think of her 
when I sat down in the old tavern porch and looked 
over at the dried-up little store, in the door of which I 
had seen her patting her little foot so prettily. I or- 
dered a buggy and drove out to my uncle's, about three 
miles from town, and spent many pleasant weeks there 
during the hot summer months. Being a young man 
of a marriageable age, my relations very naturally 
offered to introduce me to the marriageable ladies of 
the neighborhood. I expressed my willingness. Which 
sort did I fancy — fair or dark, blonde or brunette? 
Fair, by all means; who ever heard of a sallow man 
fancying a woman of his own complexion? Oh! then, 
I ought to have been here a year ago ; there was a young 
115 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

lady living in town, a great friend of ours, perfectly 
beautiful, and the very best girl in all the world, who 
would have suited me exactly. Ah, who was she? 
Miss Jenny So-and-so. Jenny! the very name I want 
my wife to have; describe her to me. They described 
her. It was the identical young lady I had seen stand- 
ing in the old store. I became excited, and my pulse 
rose as I asked the question, "Where is she now?" 
"Oh! she has been married a long time to Mr. Thing- 
amy, and lives now in the city of Jacksburg, about a 
hundred miles from here." My pulse sank, not be- 
cause I knew she was my wife {that is quite a recent 
discovery), and I had lost her, but for the good and 
sufficient reason (which authors have but lately had the 
honesty to avow) that every bachelor feels himself 
defrauded when a pretty woman marries. From the 
bottom of my heart I wished Mr. Thingamy and the 
city of Jacksburg had been at the bottom of the sea 
before they ever had heard of the beautiful Miss Jenny. 
I felt indignant she should have displayed so much 
haste to get married; and I refused to be introduced 
to anybody in the neighborhood of my uncle's. But 
whenever conversation (as it will often do in the best of 
families) turned on the subject of young ladies, my 
uncle's family were sure to bring their favorite Miss 
Jenny forward as a paragon of beauty, sweetness, good- 
breeding, good everything. As often as this would 
happen an unaccountable depression and feeling of 
loneliness and bereavement would come over me, and 
last for hours. I can now account for it — it was the as 
yet inarticulate, unintelligible premonition — a species 
116 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

of spontaneous, unconscious apperception — of nature, 
protesting against, and at the same time preparing 
me for, tiie full consciousness of the great loss I had 
sustained in losing my wife. My uncle had named a 
beautiful kitten after her; do you wonder that I petted 
Jenny, and fed her and caressed her every day I re- 
mained in the country? I do not. I am naturally 
fond of cats, and that, they say, is a sign I am going to 
be an old bachelor. Well, what if it is ? 

When the summer was ended, I left my uncle's and 
returned home, still ignorant that I had lost my wife, 
and forgetting her as before. For nearly a year I 
knocked about among the young ladies, falling now 
a litde in love, and then falling out again; charging my- 
self with fickleness and want of decision of character, 
and wondering greatly why I could not fall really in 
love with anybody. Poor fool! I didn't know that 
there was nobody left to love; I was married and didn't 
know it. Many a man is in the same fix. 

Things remained in this condition until about a 
month ago, when, having failed a second time in busi- 
ness, I concluded to spend another summer at my 
uncle's. The cars dropped me at Plantationton ; I 
went to the same old tavern, sat down in the same 
old porch, in the same old split-bottomed chair, and 
looked over at the same old store, and there, by Heaven! 
stood my wife, in almost the very spot I had first seen 
her. She was waiting for her husband, who was 
following with the nurse and child. Her husband 
was a dark-skinned fellow — almost as dark as myself, 
and not very unlike me. I have since expended some 
117 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

severe thought on this resemblance between me, the 
spiritual husband, and Thingamy, the phenomenal 
husband of my wife, and it is perfectly plain to my 
mind that, under the influence of the same spontane- 
ous, unconscious apperception, she was trying her 
very best to marry me; in fact, did marry as near me 
as she possibly could. How that fact has made me 
love her! 

The whole party had come down on the same train 
with me, and I had not known it. Fate again. They 
stood opposite me for some time, apparently resting, 
and I had the second and last (I know it will be the 
last) long, good look at her. She was greatly changed. 
No longer the same buxom, blooming girl I had seen 
years before, patting her pretty foot against the sill, 
but a beautiful woman, infinitely lovelier than the girl; 
pale, but beautiful as the bright fulfilment of the per- 
fect day is beautiful — more beautiful than the rosiest 
hues of the uncertain dawn; thin, but beautiful, as 
thought and loving cares beautify and make delicate 
mere matter; older looking, but possessed of that in- 
effable charm which only the realization of woman's 
destiny can impart to woman. I gazed on her, not 
with breathless admiration as at first, but with calm, 
intelligent adoration. Positively, hers was and is the 
sweetest human face in all this world. Nothing, abso- 
lutely nothing was wanting from those pale and gentle 
features; they expressed all that a wife and mother 
ought to be. And even as I gazed, there came into my 
soul that strange pain of vacuity and deprivation — a 
numb and formless hurt — which needed only the light 
118 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

of reflection to assume the acuteness of thought, the 
permanence of knowledge. 

From that day I have known she was my wife ; how 
I knew it, and why I knew it, has been told already, or 
if not told, never will be, for it never can be. The 
knowledge or conviction, if you prefer to call it so, 
grows on me; it increases with the increasing light 
of morning, is revealed in the splendor of high noon, 
deepens in the pensive summer twilight, and rises with 
the tutelary stars. The winds tell of it to the melan- 
choly trees ; the waters repeat it with their many liquid 
voices. It is written in cloudy hieroglyphs upon the 
distant sky; it is the shadow thrown upon the plain of 
life by the sun of hope which sinks behind my heart — 
enlarging and to enlarge, darkening and to increase in 
darkness until the night of death. It is — but I am 
getting absurd. 

Shall I remain a bachelor ? dwindle down and shrivel 
up into an old bachelor? Never! Since I cannot 
marry my own wife, I'll marry the wife of somebody 
else; and if I could only find the wife of the man who 
married my wife, I'd marry her in spite of fate. And 
if I could only ride about in the cars with a plenty of 
nurses and children, and Thingamy could see me and 
know my theory, I should be perfectly satisfied. 

Dear reader, take warning by me; study my theory; 
it was written for you, and for the whole human race. 
Try to cultivate your spontaneous, unconscious apper- 
ception. And if ever you sit down in an old tavern 
porch and see a beautiful young lady on the opposite 
side of the street, don't wait for dinner, but go right 
119 



MY WIFE, AND MY THEORY ABOUT WIVES 

over and demand her in marriage. You may be mis- 
taken; she may not be your wife; she may be already 
married; but no matter, it is your duty to make the 
effort. If you don't, you'll regret it; you will find 
yourself in my predicament. You may see me any day 
struggling through the weeds of my uncle's wheat-field, 
looking and feeling unutterably mean. No wonder; 
I have lost my wife! 



120 



V 

FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

A BEECH grows askant the Appomattox that 
curves around the foot of Uncle Jim's planta- 
tion. The stream, generally muddy, is clear now as a 
maiden's eye. Deep under the bushy banks, it flows 
with a still surface, but a strong current, a moving 
mirror, that reflects the fair October skies, and every 
limb and leaf of the overhanging trees in beauty not 
their own, for, under the perfectly outlined forms of 
branch and spray, drooping vines and fluttering leaves, 
lie the mysterious, immeasurable depths of heaven. 
'Tis a strange feeling that comes over a man as he looks 
down, down into those depths, so fathomless so won- 
drous lovely, and yet so near at hand — the cunning 
trick of light reflected from calm water. You come 
back with a start when you remember how simple it 
all is. 

The beech I spoke of is of great age. Poor old soul ! 
he has seen his best days; he is dying now. As he 
bends over the water, with his lean uplifted arms 
stretched out, he reminds me of an old fellow putting 
on an overcoat that is too tight across the shoulders for 
him. I fancy I can hear the big, piteous splash he 
121 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

will make when he topples over into the river, and can 
see his great corpse floating along, the naked limbs 
thrust up appealingly, helplessly, from his watery 
grave, till the negroes come and catch him, and cut 
him up with brutal axes, and burn him in their quarters 
'way into the long winter nights. But, thank good- 
ness! the old fellow is tough and gristly; he will hang 
on the bank many and many a day yet, and I hope to 
catch abundance of flatback from under his sheltering 
boughs before he takes his final plunge. 

The best thing about the old beech is this: leaning 
over so far from the bank, the better to look at himself, 
no doubt (he must have been vain of his personal 
appearance in youth, and I don't wonder at it, nor 
blame him a bit), leaning over in this way, he has been 
compelled to send out a tremendous growth of roots to 
hold on by. All gnarled, twisted, and interlaced, these 
roots form as nice a rustic arm-chair as heart could 
wish — the best place to fish you ever saw. You can 
sit down, lean back, rest your feet, do anything you 
please. Then the seat is so perfectly clean. And it 
is nicely shaded, too. With your pole fixed in a crevice 
right at your hand, you can smoke or read, prepared 
in a moment, when a mullet nibbles to take him. 

As Uncle Jim's plantation was once a part of the 
"Bizarre Estate," this old beech has a historical value. 
I look upon his roots with great respect. Jack, and 
Dick, and Judy, and Nancy Randolph have reposed 
their aristocratic bones on these same roots often and 
often. But I look upon these roots with awe. In the 
far past, a mightier race than the Randolphs was here. 
122 



FISmNG IN THE APPOMATTOX 

Indians and Randolphs alike are gone; we shall see 
them no more. In fact, I never saw them at all; but 
I am pleased that mine eyes have dwelt their humble 
glances on those venerated roots, so honored in the 
days of yore. 

It is early in the morning when "me and Billy 
Ivvins" and the other fellows set forth in the direction 
of the old beech. The air is crisp and cool. One of 
the fellows has a double-barrelled gun. The morn, like 
an eastern queen, is sumptuously clad in blue and 
gold; the sheen of her robes is dazzling sunlight, and 
she comes from her tent of glistening, silken, celestial 
warp, beaming with tender smiles. Billy Ivvins totes 
six slender pine poles on his left shoulder, and a cym- 
ling full of the best and biggest fishing worms in his 
right hand. The woods, painted in all the gorgeous 
dyes of autumn, repose on the distant hills, their tops 
trembling in the fresh breeze. One of the party carries 
a cold ash-cake to bait the hole with. The day is beau- 
tiful exceedingly. The veil of dusky silver, the haze of 
Indian summer, is rent in twain, and we see nature 
face to face, in the unclouded glory of her beauty — 

Sweet day! so calm, so cool, so bright, 
The bridal of the earth and sky. 

I've got two splendid Woodall pipes, plenty of first- 
rate smoking tobacco, and a box of German matches 
in my pocket. It is a day of days for flatback, pro- 
vided the moon is right. Flatback won't bite on the 
wane of the moon; nothing but nigger-knockers bite 
then — nigger-knockers and eels. 
123 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

However, we are going to try, moon or no moon. 
Billy Ivvins swears that the planetary bodies have noth- 
ing to do with fish — it's all confounded superstition. 

Arrived at the beech, the lines are quickly unwrapped 
from the poles, the hooks (Sutherland's best) are baited 
with two long worms each, a few crumbs of bread are 
cast in to keep the roach and other little fish busy; out 
go the sinkers as far to the middle of the stream as the 
poles will allow, the corks after wabbling for a litde 
while settle down and set jauntily on the water; the 
poles are fastened between the roots, and the irre- 
pressible piscatorial conflict begins. Billy Iwins leans 
against the trunk of the old beech; next him is Billy 
Y., then comes Dr. X., the best fisherman of the party, 
and, lastly, myself, perched far out on a projecting 
root. They tell me the root is rotten, and that I will 
fall into the water; but I know my weight better. 
The fish don't bite fast. I predict that we are going 
to have bad luck. Billy Y. does the same thing. 
Billy Ivvins swears that we are "boun' to take 'em." 
Dr. X. sits perfectly silent. We all watch our corks: 
no movement. A desultory talk springs up, mainly 
about the Harper's Ferry affair. Billy Ivvins swears 
that an attempt will be made to rescue "old Brown." 
"He is of the opinion that the country is full of aboli- 
tionists; says that these oil-cloth and table-cloth men 
that tramp about the State are nothing but emissaries 
of the underground — they ought all to be hung. And 
all these Northern preachers, professors, and school- 
teachers, that we have amongst us, ought to be made 
to swear an oath of allegiance to Virginia, or else be 
124 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

immediately killed. He thinks "Gizzard" the very 
man for the present crisis. Ding 'em! he'll swing 'em. 
Gizzard's good grit as ever fluttered. If Brown is 
acquitted, he (Billy I.) will be one of twelve men to 
follow him and shoot him on sight, wherever found. 
Brown ought to be hung, drawn, and quartered, his 
head stuck over the penitentiary, and the rest of him 
suspended in trees in various parts of the State, a ter- 
ror to all who behold. 

"The militia ought to be thoroughly organized. He 
wondered why old Gizzard had not done this before. 
Fine every man ten dollars who don't attend muster," 
etc., etc. 

Dr. X. thinks he has a nibble, and begs Billy to stop 
talking, which he does reluctantly. 

We all admire the glorious weather, the lovely day, 
the sweet seclusion by the riverside, under the beechen 
boughs, with the fresh wind pouring its invisible flood 
over our heads as we sit under the bank, and shaking 
down a Danse shower of golden leaves from the trees. 

There is a plenty to interest and charm us beside 
the world of inanimate nature around us. 

The tree tops are full of robins eating grapes. How 
they chirp, and flutter, and shriek, and dash about! as 
if half afraid and altogether delighted, like a parcel of 
school-girls bathing in a shallow creek. Crows by the 
hundred wing their level flight over the field back of 
us, cawing as they go. They are preparing to hold a 
caucus in the pines over there. Here comes a gust of 
blackbirds. They wheel impetuously, and alight in an 
instant, as if drilled, high on the limbs of a dead birch- 
125 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

tree right opposite us, on the other side of the river. 
There they are, all in a lump, the black rascals, look- 
ing at us as unconcernedly as you please. It is as 
much as we can do to keep Billy Y. from banging 
away at them. But it will never do to scare the fish. 
Whew! robins and blackbirds go off in a tumultuous 
cloud. 

What's the matter now? Aha! No wonder you 
flew so quickly, my little fellows. There's a hawk, a 
big gray one, comes swooping on noiseless wings out of 
the sky. By jingo! he's lit not forty feet from us. 
Shuh! he's gone, without a sound, before Billy Y. can 
get to his gun. ''Hallo! hallo! what's that?" "Ot- 
ter." "Otter the devil — it's a mus'rat. No, 'taint — 
it's a duck." "'Taint a duck either, it's a didapper." 
"There he is; there he is; I saw him when he rose." 
Billy Y. is after him; but he might as well try to shoot 
a witch without a silver bullet. We hear his gun go 
off, and he comes back presently bringing a field-lark 
in his hand, the yellow breast all rumpled, and the 
brown wings hanging limp and lifeless. 

Meantime Dr. X. has caught one or two fish — small 
ones — whitesides. Billy Ivvins, in great wrath, has 
pulled out a hideous nigger-knocker, and I have had a 
glorious nibble. Billy Y. is in bad luck; not a thing 
has touched his "stopper"; he is restless, and keeps 
moving about, to the great annoyance of that exem- 
plary fisherman Dr. X., a model of quietness and taci- 
turnity. Billy Ivvins swears that Billy Y. has got the 
"evil hand," and that's the reason the fish won't bite 
at anything he has touched. Whereupon I make a 
126 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

pun, and say that Billy Y.'s evil hand has given his 
pole the pole-evil. Billy I wins swears he will kill me 
for a fool. 

We hear a squirrel barking down the river, and the 
"evil hand" goes after him, and brings him. The 
fish are beginning to bite pretty well — one or two 
medium-sized flatback have been landed by Dr. X. 
Again there is silence, interrupted only by the restless 
and unlucky Billy Y., and two little negro girls who 
are picking peas in the cornfield across the river. The 
corn has been topped, and stripped of its broad fodder 
blades, each stalk holds out a heavy yellow pouch, 
giving promise of endless pone for the coming year. 
A slight rustle is heard in the weeds over the way. 
Perhaps the partridges are there — a glorious flock, not 
less than a hundred, have grown up in Uncle Jim's 
plantation during the summer, and have come down 
to spend the fall in the low-grounds. But while we 
look, a small inquisitive head, with a Roman crest, 
and an eye half hidden in a white circlet, peers out of 
the weeds; and presently a sinuous, graceful neck is 
lifted high, disclosing a breast cuirassed in blue, bur- 
nished steel; it is a lordly peacock, with his mate, 
anxiously inquiring the meaning of those strange forms 
seated on the old root over against him. And now a 
shadow with expanded wings is seen in the limpid 
depths of the stream. We look up, and lo! far. far 
aloft in the bright October heavens there floats, on 
stretched unmoving pinions, a buzzard — that hungry 
black republican democrat of the skies — surveying the 
wide territory below him, intent on practical squatter 
127 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

sovereignty, and seeking where he may intervene to 
protect the carcass of a deceased cow or mule. Several 
of them, belonging to Uncle Jim, having paid the for- 
feit of too deep affection for poisonous mushrooms, 
now lie stark and cold in the pines beyond the tobacco- 
house. Billy Y. proposes "unfriendly legislation" in 
the shape of three fingers of shot; but as it is impor- 
tant to preserve the harmony of the party (the fishing 
party), Senator Douglas — I beg pardon, I should have 
said the buzzard — is permitted to go on his way unmo- 
lested. 

Our lines are continually disturbed by dead leaves. 
They appear to love to hang around the corks, like a 
parcel of red-nosed topers round a bottle. As they 
come sailing down the river, myriads in number, and 
of all the hues of the rainbow, one can't help thinking 
that somebody has split a quilting up the stream, and 
is naturally anxious to see the girls, and find out how 
the accident occurred. I'll bet there are some boys 
up there, and that the quilting frame, baskets of scraps, 
etc., got upset while a tremendous romping was going 
on. 

"Hush!" says Dr. X. (Nobody has said a word.) 
"I've got a bite," he goes on, calmly; "that's a flat- 
back. I know by the way he bites, and I shall cer- 
tainly catch him." We look — the cork gives scarcely 
a sign, and the next moment out comes a dripping 
ingot of silver, glistening brightly in the sun. The 
ingot proves to be a goodly flatback, and is soon 
thrown high and dry on the bank. Billy Iwins swears 
that the p'int of his hook is out, and that's the reason 
128 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

the fish haven't bit at him this half-hour. He pulls 
at length, and up comes a tolerable sized flatback, 
who had been quietly sucking all the time. Now I 
have a decided nibble. "It's nothing but a roach," 
says Billy. *' Give him plenty of time," says the doc- 
tor. So I wait till I can wait no longer, and then 
jerk; and by Jove! it's a splendid mullet. The fish are 
beginning to bite in earnest; everybody catches them 
except Billy with the "evil hand"; not even a nigger- 
knocker will bite at him. And the fish get bigger and 
bigger, pull stronger and stronger. Soon the doctor 
hangs a whaler — a flatback sixteen inches long. How 
he pulls! How he bends the pole! "Let him play, let 
him play!" is the cry, and we all draw out our lines to 
give him room. At last he is wearied out; the doctor 
draws him to the surface, and he lies fully exposed to 
view, a prodigious fellow. He has given up entirely and 
struggles no more. Just at this crisis, the hook slips 
out of his side where, it had accidentally caught, and 
the noble fish is lost. But flatback magniis don't know 
he is loose. There he lies, resigned to his fate. A 
second more, he wriggles his tail and darts out of sight 
under the water. There is a general outcry of disap- 
pointment and vexation. But all we have to do is to 
make up for lost time; so we throw in again, and it is 
not long before we are rewarded for our pains. The 
fish we are catching now are all of good size, twelve or 
fourteen inches long, and upon my word they do pull 
gallantly. It is equal almost to trouting. Billy Ivvins 
swears that the flatback in this hole are superior to 
any other in the river — they are of pure Castilian blood, 
129 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

game and mettlesome as a wild horse when he is first 
lassoed. 

"Is that the cars ?" Yes, it is the train from Lynch- 
burg. It is half-past one o'clock — high time for din- 
ner. And while the roaring of the train is still in our 
ears, here comes Aunt Lockey from the house, with a 
heavy basket, little Ada staggering behind her under 
the weight of a big bucket of fresh spring-water. An 
old plank makes a good dinner- table; the plates and 
dishes, with excellent fried ham, chicken that needs 
only a little salt, sweet-potatoes, bread, and sweet 
pickles, make up the repast, which we devour with 
hearty relish, watching our corks all the time. But 
the fish are too well-bred to interrupt gentlemen while 
they are dining. There's not a single bite until we are 
through with our meal and have lighted our pipes. 
Even then the fish trouble us very little. Doubdess 
they are taking a siesta, for it is a well-known fact that 
fish never bite well from after dinner until an hour or 
two before sunset. We wait patiently. The slant sun- 
beams creep around the little tree to our left, and fall 
upon the water above the pool. 

The biting commences again, but I am chilled and 
go up the bank to walk about and warm myself. As 
the fish are tossed up, I can but admire them. The 
"flatback," you know, is called "sucker" in some 
parts of the country, and, with its broad, mottled, 
green back, its large fins and black eyes, makes as pretty 
a fish as any that swim in our waters. It is easily 
caught, if you have patience. The mullet is a beau- 
tiful fish. Its glistening sides of silver mail and its 
130 



i 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

broad, purple fins, are a delight to look at. All fish 
are beautiful, on account of their clean, healthy look; 
but these we are catching seem peculiarly so. What 
unpolluted blood flows in their veins ! how free they are 
from the aches, the ills, the slow, consuming diseases 
of human kind ! They owe no money, buy no clothes, 
pay nothing for board, rent no houses, are never taxed, 
never have any accounts at the dry-goods stores, are 
never troubled about bonnets for their wives, or school- 
ing for their children, own no land and no negroes, 
care nothing about old Brown, are not at all excited 
about the election in 1860, and don't have to get up, of 
a cold winter's morning, and wash their faces in a tin 
pan. It is a sin and a shame to drag them out of their 
homes into this dirty upper world. How soon their 
glory departs, their lustre fades! Their silver coats 
are soon begrimed with dust, and even their round, 
undefended eyes, are filled with it. Pity, pity, they 
haven't got eyelids. I declare it hurts me to see them 
flapping vainly to get back into the water, as they lie 
gasping and panting on the bank. And how sorrowful 
their poor mouths look — did you ever notice them ? 

Another name for the nigger-knocker is hogfish, 
and it is by far the ugliest tenant of the Virginia waters. 
Catfish are sweet and pretty compared to nigger- 
knockers. They have a mean poisonous look. Their 
heads are ragged and hideous beyond expression, re- 
minding me of the stump of a thumb after the end has 
been blown off by a pistol, more than any thing else I 
can think of. 

But now the shades are deepening fast; it is getting 
131 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

really cold; the water, with its dark reflections, looks 
like a wondrous picture in Indian ink. We hear the 
dull tinkle of the bells, as the cows pace slowly to the 
"cuppen." Still, the fish bite. We can scarcely see 
our corks, but we are loath to leave. Billy Iwins hangs 
a monster flatback; he pulls like mad; as he rushes 
to and fro under the water, the pole bends like a bow, 
and fairly cracks under his struggles; but Billy Iwins 
knows how to manage him. At last he is completely 
exhausted, and struggles no more. Cautiously, slowly, 
Billy draws him up; he is fairly out of the water, a 
glorious fellow, eighteen inches long at the very least, 
and hangs as still as death. But ere his tail is six 
inches from the water, the treacherous snood snaps, 
down he drops, and is gone for ever. You just ought 
to have heard Billy Iwins swear. I have heard many 
men curse, such as congressmen, hack drivers, and 
gamblers, but none of them ever equalled Billy Iwins 
on this occasion — 

"No ancient devil, 
Plunged to the chin, when burning hot, 
Into a holy water pot; 
Could so blaspheme, or fire a volley 
Of oaths so dire and melancholy," 

as Billy Iwins fired when that snood snapped and that 
flatback fell back into the Appomattox. 

But now we are compelled to leave. We fix up our 

tackle in haste, and put out at high speed, one of the 

party carrying the mighty string of flatback, mullet, 

and nigger-knockers; the others taking charge of the 

132 






FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

guns, etc. A little way down the river bank, we dis- 
cover what appears to be a bundle of fodder set up on 
the end to scare the fish away from three or four poles 
that hang over the water. It proves to be Uncle Jim, 
in a battered wool hat and a sun-cured old overcoat, 
with his feet wrapped up in a blanket to keep them 
warm. The old fellow has displayed his skill by catch- 
ing nearly as many fish as all of us boys together. 
Adding his fish to our string, we set forth again at a 
topping pace, to start the circulation, which has be- 
come stagnant by long sitting on the beech root. Be- 
sides, it is very cold. 

By the time we reach a snug little bachelor estab- 
lishment, the stars are sparkling in the skies, and we 
are warm as toasts from the rapid two-mile walk. 
Supper is soon served. We partake of it sparingly and 
go to Farmville to hear old Joe Sweeny. We find that 
the old fellow has let down; but he is welcome to our 
small change for the sake of what he used to be when 
he was young and in his prime. 

After the concert is over we repair to the Randolph 
House, take a good big drink of excellent Bumgardner 
— a whiskey that is said to have power almost to raise 
the dead. We pay our respects to Messrs. Pryor and 
Goode (it is the night before election day), and find 
both of them pretty well used up, and accordingly 
leave them to their much needed rest. We return to 
the bachelor establishment, and about eleven o'clock 
sit down to a magnificent flatback supper; and we 
enjoy it as only Appomattox flatback fishermen can 
enjoy it. At the close of his tenth cup of coffee, Billy 
133 



FISHING IN THE APPOMATTOX 

Ivvins looks over a lofty pile of flatback bones, and 
gets very sick. He swears that flatback is the greatest 
eating in the world. He wishes he may be teetotally 
dad-blasted into everlasting dad-blamenation if they 
ain't superior even to shadses. The skulls of flatback 
parched would make splendid coffee. Flatback is the 
meat of all meats for married men to eat. He intended 
to get him a large wagon and fill it with flatback, and 
get married and start in the morning for Texas, etc., 
etc. 

And so ended the great "ketchin' of flatback, mul- 
let, and nigger-knockers, in the Appomattox." 



134 



VI 

AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

THE RECORD OF A MAN WHO SHIVERED THROUGH THE 
MANASSAS CAMPAIGN. 

T^X-GOVERNOR JAMES L. KEMPER tells a war 
■*-^ story that is so very good I think he must have 
invented it. Yet it is so true to nature that it ought to 
have happened a hundred, nay, a thousand times. 
He says that on the night of the retreat from Williams- 
burg in 1862, when men and officers were mixed up 
indiscriminately in the muddy road, with the rain fall- 
ing heavily on them, and no man knew his neighbor, 
a soldier near him (General Kemper) pulled himself 
out of the mire, and going up to the fence on the road- 
side dropped his musket to the ground, and, in accents 
of the most intense sincerity, exclaimed: 

"Well, if ever I love another country ag'in, damn 
me!" 

Much the same feeling came over me the first night 
I slept, or tried to sleep, at the new fair-grounds, in 
the suburbs of Richmond, which had been turned into 
a camp of instruction, and was called Camp Lee. My 
friend, Lieutenant Latham, of Lynchburg (afterward 
Acting Judge Advocate General of the Army of North- 
135 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

ern Virginia), and I slept under the same blanket on 
the upper floor of one of the fair-ground buildings. 
The month was April, the night was chill, the air keen, 
the blanket thin, the planks hard. Moreover, I had 
eaten freely of hard tack and drunk still more freely of 
cold water, which was bad for my dyspepsia. 

Truth is, there was a big disgust upon me, more on 
account of my "sojer clothes," I think, than anything 
else. Nature had not fitted me for a roundabout with 
brass buttons — a fact which the young ladies discovered 
as we marched past them and their waving 'kerchiefs 
on our way to Camp Lee. Besides, I had always 
thought "sojering" tomfoolery anyhow. So when the 
night wind blew keen upon my ribs, my purpose to 
love any more countries diminished as sensibly as did 
the soldier's on the Williamsburg road, though I did 
not formulate it in such spirited terms as his. Yet I 
loved my country, I verily believe, as much as any man 
on the ground at Camp Lee — would have died for her; 
but not by freezing, or, worse still, by filth. Of this 
last, more anon. That others shared my feelings was 
proved by V. Dabney. In consequence of his huge 
bulky figure, his jolly good nature and his fund of wit, 

V was a conspicuous figure in the camp. He had 

been raised in luxury. His father, a rich Mississippi 
planter, had lavished money on him, and actually 
urged him into extravagance. His ideal of life was a 
hotel in Paris, and this sort of thing didn't suit him at 
all. But his sense of duty was supreme. 

"Boys," he would say, as he took his short meer- 
schaum from his mouth and drew up his robust figure 
136 



i 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

to its full height, "Boys, I want you distinctly to un- 
derstand — this is my last war! This is my first, and I 
am going to see it through to the bitter end, but after 
this no more war, no more sleeping in straw for V. D. 
No, sir!" 

He was as good as his word. He went through the war, 
rising to a captaincy on the staff of Gordon, of Geor- 
gia, and now teaches school in the city of New York. 

"Sleeping on straw!" Aye, that was the rub. To 
be sure we had ticks, but they were about as thin as the 
insect of that name; there were about nine of us to a 
tent — ^good large Sibley tents we had at first — and not 
a night-shirt among the whole nine. Reveille was 
another misery. I was three-and-thirty years of age, 
a born invalid, whose habit had been to rise late, bathe 
leisurely, and eat breakfast after everybody else was 
done. To get up at dawn to the sound of fife and 
drum, to wash my face in a hurry in a tin basin, wipe 
on a wet towel, and go forth with a suffocated skin 
and a sense of uncleanness to be squad-drilled by a fat 
little cadet, young enough to be my son, of the Virginia 
Military Institute, that, indeed, was misery. How I 
hated that little cadet! He was always so wide-awake, 
so clean, so interested in the drill; his coat tails were so 
short and sharp, and his hands looked so big in white 
gloves. He made me sick. What the deuce did I 
care about learning how to "hold my piece," to "load 
in nine times," and all that? I was furious; but at 
the same time I got up a big appetite for breakfast, 
which was generally good, for we lived pretty well at 
Camp Lee. 

137 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

I recall a single incident at Camp Lee. The com- 
pany next to ours was from Campbell County, I think, 
and composed almost wholly of illiterate countrymen. 
Hearing an animated conversation going on toward 
their camp-fire one night, I drew nigh and listened. 
The causes that led to the war were being discussed, 
and the principal speaker, a sergeant, gave an account 
of the formation of our government and the true theory 
of its working on States-rights principles that would 
have done credit to a constitutional lawyer. On in- 
quiry I learned that this sergeant was by trade a plas- 
terer, and what he knew about the government he had 
learned from stump speakers. He was a pretty fair 
specimen of the average Confederate soldier, who knew 
what he was about when he entered into the war. 

One morning news came that we had been ordered 
to Manassas. It was true. I was glad — anything for 
a change. 

Garland's Battalion, afterward the Eleventh Vir- 
ginia Regiment, was the first organized body of troops 
sent to Manassas. The battalion was composed of 
Company A, the Rifle Greys; Company B, the Home 
Guard (both of Lynchburg); the Fincastle Rifles, a 
Campbell County company, and possibly one from 
Pittsylvania County, but I cannot be certain. All that 
I remember is that there were four or five companies. 
There was some little grumbling in our company, and, 
perhaps, others, when it became known that Garland 
was to command the battalion, and this discontent 
deepened when he obtained the appointment of colonel. 
It was loudly whispered that he had intrigued for the 
138 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

appointment. No one doubted his capacity, for he 
was a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, and 
a young lawyer of remarkable intelligence, but, unfor- 
tunately, he "lacked grit." Whereas, said the grum- 
blers, the captain of Company A, Maurice S. Lang- 
horne, was, like all the other Langhornes, brave as a 
lion. 

This was the talk. I give it as an illustration of the 
mistake constantly made at the beginning of the war, 
that animal bravery was the main requisite in a soldier. 
What a mistake! Bullies ever ready for a brawl re- 
peatedly proved arrant cowards on the field, while the 
cowards, so-called, turned out to be the most gallant 
and skilled of soldiers. Samuel Garland was neither 
coward nor bully, but a refined, scholarly gentleman, 
whose courage in action was so conspicuous and whose 
capacity so marked that when he fell at Boonsboro', in 
the second year of the war, he was acting major-general, 
and deemed one of the most promising young officers 
in the whole army. In his native city his memory is 
sacred; he is beloved and revered beyond any soldier 
that left that portion of the State. His name is never 
mentioned without honor and tenderness. 

It must have been mid-day or earlier when we left 
Richmond on a train of box-cars, with tents, camp 
equipage, etc., amid great cheering and enthusiasm 
for this, mark you, was war, real war, and no fooling 
about it. Oh! what asses men are! as if that were 
anything to be jolly about! We went slowly along, 
pausing at every station to let the girls see us, give us 
bouquets, and wave their handkerchiefs at us. Being 
139 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

an invalid, I was allowed a seat in a passenger car with 
the officers, but as the hot May afternoon wore away 
I felt worse and worse. It was night when we reached 
Gordonsville, seventy-six miles from Richmond, and 
then occurred a long halt. Dr. Chalmers, who had 
heard me complain about my throat, came to my seat 
and felt my pulse. 

"You have decided fever," said he, "and the best 
thing you can do is to get out here and lie over till you 
get well. I will leave some medicine with you." 

Words more welcome never issued from mortal lips 
— no, not even when my lady-love said "yes." There 
was a good hotel at Gordonsville — it is there now, and- 
I never pass it without a benediction — kept by a man 
named Omohundro, who was called "M'hundrer" for 
short. Into that hotel, and upstairs to a second story 
room, I hurried with all speed. "Wouldn't I have 
supper?" inquired M'hundrer. No, but a bucket or a 
tub of hot water by a negro boy. 

The bathing over — how I enjoyed it! I dismissed 
the boy, put on a night-shirt that had been dying for 
three weeks — at least I had been dying for it — blew 
out the light, a wood fire was on the hearth, and got 
into bed. The sweet languor of fever was on me, the 
warm bath had softened my whole nature, bodily and 
spiritually, my skin began to breathe once more, the 
odor of the clean pillow-cases was more delicious than 
roses or lilies, and as I stretched myself out at full 
length I actually tasted the clean sheets clear down to 
my toes. You may talk about happiness, but there 
is no greater happiness than I experienced at that 
140 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

moment. What heaven may be I know not, but that 
was heaven enough for me. I blessed Chalmers for 
advising me to stop, blessed the negro boy, blessed 
M'hundrer, the hot water, the pillows, the sheets, the 
whole world, and went to sleep vowing that never 
again while life lasted would I sleep in anything but 
clean sheets, be the consequences what they might to 
the Southern Confederacy. 

I remained there two or three days, taking as little 
medicine as possible and getting well as slowly as possi- 
ble. During my stay a number of trains went by on 
their way to Richmond, laden with the spoils of the 
arsenal and workshops at Harper's Ferry — guns, am- 
munition and machinery that were invaluable to us. 

I believe that Garland found Captain Lay with a 
part of the Powhatan Troop at Manassas — certainly the 
place had been picketed for a few weeks — but that was 
all. Its strategic importance seemed to have been 
overlooked. On my arrival I found the boys com- 
fortably quartered in tents and enjoying the contents 
of boxes of good things, which already had begun com- 
ing from home. In a little store at the station they had 
discovered a lot of delicious cherry brandy, which they 
were dispatching with thoughtless haste. Rigid mili- 
tary rule was not yet enforced, and the boys had a 
good time. I saw no fun in it. The battalion drill 
bore heavily upon me; Garland constantly forgot to 
give the order to shift our guns from a shoulder to a 
support. This gave me great pain, made me very 
mad, and threw me into a perspiration, which, owing to 
my feeble circulation, was easily checked by the cold 
141 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

breeze from the Bull Run Mountain, and thereby put 
me in jeopardy of pneumonia. Moreover, I longed for 
my night-shirt and the clean bed at Gordonsville. The 
situation was another source of trouble to me. After 
brooding over it a good while I got my friend Latham 
to write, at my dictation, a letter to John M. Daniel's 
paper, the Richmond Examiner. The letter was not 
printed, but handed to General Lee, and additional 
troops began to come rapidly — one or two South Caro- 
lina regiments, the First Virginia Regiment, Captain 
Shields's company of Richmond Howitzers, Latham's 
Lynchburg Battery, in all of which, except the regi- 
ments from South Carolina, we had hosts of friends. 
The more men the sicker I got, and the further re- 
moved from that solitude which was the delight of my 
life. I made up my mind not to desert, but to get 
killed at the first opportunity. I might get a clean 
shirt, and would certainly get, in the grave, all the 
solitude I wanted. 

Beauregard soon took command. This was a com- 
fort to us all. We felt safe. About this time, too, the 
wives and sisters of a number of officers came from 
Lynchburg on a visit to the camp. That was great joy 
to us all. Lieutenant Latham's little son, barely two 
years old, and dressed in full Rifle Grey uniform, was 
the lion of the hour. The ladies looked lovely. Such 
a relief after a surfeit of men; our eyes fairly feasted 
on them. Other ladies put in an appearance from 
time to time. Returning from Bristoe, where I had 
gone to bathe, my eyes fell on three of the most beauti- 
ful human beings they had ever beheld. Beautiful 
142 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

at any time and place, they were now inexpressibly so 
by reason of the fact that women were such a rarity 
in camp. They were bright figures on a background 
of many thousand dingy, not to say dirty, men. If I 
go to heaven — I hope I may — the angels themselves 
will hardly look more lovely than those young ladies 
did that solitary afternoon. I was most anxious to 
know their names. They were the Misses Carey — 
Hetty and Jennie Carey, of Baltimore, and Constance, 
their cousin, of Alexandria. No man can form an 
idea of the rapture which the sight of a woman will 
bring him until he absents himself from the sex for a 
long time. He can then perfectly understand the story 
about the ecstatic dance in which some California 
miners indulged when they unexpectedly came upon an 
old straw bonnet in the road. Pretty women head the 
list of earthly delights. 

Over and over I heard the order read at dress parade, 
all closing with the formula, "By command of General 
Beauregard, Thomas Jordan, A. A. G." This went 
on for some weeks without attracting any special at- 
tention on my part. At last some one said in my hear- 
ing: "Beauregard's adjutant is a Virginian." I 
pricked up my ears. "Wonder if he can be the Cap- 
tain Jordan I knew in Washington ? I'll go and see," 
I said to myself. Colonel, afterward General, Jordan 
received me most cordially, dirty private though I was. 
He was, as usual, very busy. "Sit down a minute. I 
want presently to have a little talk with you." My 
prophetic soul told me something good was coming, and, 
when, after some preliminary talk about unimportant 
143 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

matters, he said: "So you are a 'high private in the 
rear rank?' " 

"Yes," was my reply, 

"Aren't you tired of drilling?" 

"Tired to death." 

" Well, you are the very man I want. Certain letters 
and papers have to be written in this office which ought 
to be done by a man of literary training, and you are 
just that person, I'll have you detailed at once, and 
you must report here in the morning. Excuse me now, 
I am very busy." Indeed, he was the busiest man I 
almost ever saw, and to-day in the office of the Mining 
Record, of New York, he is as busy as ever. A more 
indefatigable worker than General Thomas Jordan it 
would be hard, if not impossible, to find. 

My duties at first were very light. I ate and slept in 
camp as before, reported at my leisure every morning 
at head-quarters, and did any writing that was required 
of me. General Jordan's clerks being fully competent 
to do the great bulk of the work in his office. The 
principal of these clerks was quite a young man, seven- 
teen or eighteen, perhaps, and was named Smith — 
Clifton Smith, of Alexandria, Va. — and a most assidu- 
ous and faithful youth he was. He is now a prosper- 
ous broker in New York. After midnight Jordan was 
a perfect owl; there were always papers and letters of 
a particular character, in the preparation of which I 
could be of service. We got through with them gener- 
ally by one a.m., then had a little chat, sometimes, 
though not often, a glass of whiskey and water, and 
then I went back to camp, a quarter of a mile off, not 
144 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

without risking my life at the hands of a succession of 
untrained pickets. At camp things were compara- 
tively comfortable. The weather was so warm that 
most of the men preferred to sleep out-doors on the 
ground. I often had a tent to myself. Troops con- 
tinued to come. Many went by to Johnston (who, to 
our dismay, had fallen back from Harper's Ferry), 
but many stayed. Water began to fail, wells in pro- 
fusion were dug, but without much avail, and water 
had to be brought by rail. Excellent it was. Boxes 
of provisions continued to come in diminishing num- 
bers, but upon the whole we lived tolerably well. The 
Eleventh Virginia, its quota now filled, had gone out 
on one or two little expeditions without material 
results. It formed part of Longstreet's Brigade, and 
made a fine appearance and most favorable impression 
in the first brigade drill that took place. How thank- 
ful I was that I was not in it! 

During these days when the camp of the Eleventh 
Virginia was comparatively deserted, the men being 
detailed at various duties, there occurred an episode 
which will never be forgotten by those who witnessed 
it. Coming down from head-quarters about one o'clock 
to get my dinner, I became aware as soon as I drew 
nigh our tents that something unusual was "toward," 
as Carlyle would say. Sure enough there was. In 
addition to the ladies from Lynchburg, heretofore men- 
tioned, we had been visited by quite a number of the 
leading men of that city, who came to look after their 
sons and wards. Several ministers, among them the 
Rev. Jacob D. Mitchell, had come to preach for us. 
145 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

But now there was a visitor of a different stripe. The 
moment I got within hailing distance of the captain's 
tent I heard a loud hearty voice call me by my first 
name. 

"Hello! George, what '11 you have? Free bar. Got 
every liquor you can name. Call for what you please." 

Looking up, I beheld the bulky form, the dusky- 
red cheeks and sparkling black eyes of Major Daniel 
Warwick, a Baltimore merchant, formerly of Lynch- 
burg, who had come to share the fortune, good or ill, 
of his native State. He was the prince of good fellows, 
a bon vivant in the fullest sense of the term, a Falstaff 
in form and in love of fun. What he said was literally 
true, or nearly so; he had all sorts of liquors. In order 
to test him I called for a bottle of London stout. 

"Sam, you scoundrel! fetch out that stout. 

How'U you have it — plain ? Better let me make you a 
porteree this hot day." 

"Very good; make it a porteree." 

He was standing behind an improvised bar of bar- 
rels and planks, set forth with decanters, bottles, 
glasses, lemons, oranges, and pineapples, with his boy 
Sam as his assistant. The porteree, which was but 
one of many that I enjoyed during the major's stay, 
was followed by a royal dinner, contributed almost 
wholly by the major. This was kept up for a week or 
ten days, officers and men of the Lynchburg companies 
and invited guests, some of them quite distinguished, 
all joining in the prolonged feast, which must have 
cost the major many hundreds of dollars. 

The major's inexhaustible wit and humor, his quaint 
146 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

observations on everything he saw, his sanguine pre- 
dictions about the war, and his odd behavior throughout, 
were as much of a feast as his eatables and drinkables. 
He was the greatest favorite imaginable. Everything 
was done to please him and make him comfortable, 
including a tent fitted up for him. Being much fatigued 
by his first day's experience as an open barkeeper, he 
went to bed early, the boys all keeping quiet to insure 
his sleeping. Within twenty minutes they heard him 
snoring, and the next thing they knew the tent burst 
wide open and out rushed the corpulent major, clad 
only in his shirt, and as he came he shouted at the pitch 
of his stentorian voice: "Gi' me a'r, gi' me a'r! 
For God's sake, gi' me a'r!" Of course there was a 
universal burst of laughter, which the major bore with 
perfect good nature. Thenceforth he slept on a blanket 
under the canopy of heaven, enjoying it as much, 
he declared, as a deer hunt in the wilds of western 
Virginia. He carried with him, when he left, the God- 
speed of hundreds of hearts grateful for the abundant 
and unexpected happiness he had brought them. 

This was that same major who cut up such pranks 
in New York City a few months after the war ended 
— picking up a strong negro on the street and forcing 
him to eat breakfast with him at the Prescott House, 
imperiously ordering the white waiters to attend to his 
every want, then walking arm in arm with the negro 
down Broadway, each having in his mouth the longest 
cigar that could be bought, and puffing away at a 
great rate, to the intense disgust of the passers-by. 
Of this freak I was myself eye-witness. In the restau- 
147 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

rants he would burst out with a lot of Confederate 
songs, and keep them up till scowls and oaths gave him 
to understand that it would be dangerous to continue, 
when he would suddenly whip off into some intensely 
loyal air, leaving his auditors in doubt whether he was 
Union or secesh, or simply a crank. In the street-cars 
and omnibuses he would ostentatiously stand up for 
negro women as they entered, deposit their fare, gal- 
lantly help them in and out, taking off his hat as he 
did, and bitterly inveighing against those who refused 
to follow his example. So pointed were his insults 
that his huge size alone saved him from many a knock- 
down. He lived too merrily to live long, and died in 
Baltimore in 1867, I believe. 

Ever since the fall of Sumter Beauregard's star had 
been in the ascendant. His poetical name seemed to 
carry a magical charm with it. Jordan had implicit 
faith in him. Many others looked upon him as likely 
to be the foremost military figure of the war, and were 
prepared to attach themselves to his fortunes. Keep- 
'ing my place as a private detailed for duty in the adju- 
tant's office, I contented myself with a simple intro- 
duction to the general, and did not presume to enter 
into conversation with him — a privilege most editors 
would have claimed. (I was then editor of the South- 
ern Literary Messenger.) But I availed myself of my 
opportunity to study this prominent character in the 
pending struggle. His athletic figure, the leonine for- 
mation of his head, his large, dark^brown eyes and his 
broad, low forehead indicated courage and capacity. 
Of his mental caliber I could not judge, but others 
148 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

spoke highly of it. He indefatigably studied the coun- 
try around Manassas, riding out every day with the 
engineer officers and members of his staff. He was 
eminently polite, patient, and good-natured. I never 
knew him to lose his temper but once, and then the 
occasion was ludicrous in the extreme. 

Just before the battle of Manassas the militia of all 
the adjoining counties were called out in utmost haste 
to swell our numbers. A colonel of one of the mihtia 
regiments, arrayed in old-style cocked hat and big 
epaulets, came up a morning or two before the battle 
and asked to see the general. When General Beau- 
regard appeared, he said with utmost sincerity: 

"General Beauregard, my men are mostly men of 
ramilies. They left home in a hurry, without enough 
coffee-pots, frying-pans, and blankets, and they would 
like, sir, to go back for a few days to get these things 
and to compose their minds, which is oneasy about 
their families, their craps, and many other things." 

Beauregard's eyes flashed fire. 

"Do you see that sun, sir?" pointing to it. 

"Yes, sir," said the colonel, in wondering timidity. 

"Well, sir, I might as well attempt to pull down that 
sun from heaven as to allow your men to return home 
at a critical moment like this. Go tell your men to 
prepare for battle at any instant. There is no telling 
when it may come." 

The colonel retreated in confusion. 

Beauregard's high qualities as an engineer — most 
signally proved by his subsequent defence of Charles- 
ton, compared with which the reduction of Sumter 
149 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

was a trifle — were acknowledged on all hands. What 
he would be at the head of an army in the open field 
remained to be seen. It was a trying time for him; 
but if he were nervous no one discovered it. 

His staff was composed mostly of young South Caro- 
linians of good family, and he had in addition a num- 
ber of volunteer aids, all of them men of distinction. 
Ex-Governor James Chestnut was one, I think. Will- 
iam Porcher Miles, an accomplished scholar and ele- 
gant gentleman, I am sure was. So was that grand 
specimen of manhood. Colonel John S. Preston; also, 
Ex-Governor Manning, a most charming and agree- 
able companion. His juleps, made of his own dark 
brandy and served at mid-day in a large bucket, in lieu 
of something better, greatly endeared him to us all. 
One day all these distinguished gentlemen suddenly 
disappeared. Colonel Jordan simply said they had 
gone to Richmond; but evidently something was in 
the wind. What could it be? On their return, after 
a week's absence, as well as I remember, there was 
an ominous hush about the whole proceeding. No- 
body had anything to say, but there was a graver, 
less happy atmosphere at head-quarters. Gradually it 
leaked out that Mr. Davis had rejected Beauregard's 
proposal that Johnston should suddenly join him and 
the two should attack McDowell unawares and unpre- 
pared. The mere refusal could not have caused so 
much feeling at head-quarters. There must have been 
aggravating circumstances, but what they were I never 
learned. All I could get from Colonel Jordan was a 
lifting of the eyebrows, and "Mr. Davis is a peculiar 
150 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

man. He thinks he knows more than everybody else 
combined." 

What! want of confidence in our president, at this 
early stage of the game ? Impossible ! A vague alarm 
filled me. I had been the first — the very first, I be- 
lieve — to nominate Mr. Davis for the presidency; had 
violated the traditions of the oldest Southern literary 
journal in doing so. I had no personal knowledge of 
his fitness for the position. No. But his record as a 
soldier in Mexico, his experience as minister of war, 
and his fame as a statesman seemed to point him out 
as the man ordained by Providence to be our leader. 
And now so soon distrusted! I tried to dismiss the 
whole thing from my mind, it distressed me so. But 
it would not down at my bidding. Many prominent 
men came to look after the troops of their respective 
States, sometimes in an ojQBcial capacity, sometimes 
of their own accord. Among them was Thomas L. 
Clingman, of North Carolina, with whom I had a 
slight acquaintance. How it came about I quite for- 
get, but we took a walk, one afternoon, down the 
Warrenton road, and fell to talking about the subject 
uppermost in my thoughts — Mr. Davis. Clingman 
seemed to know his character thoroughly, and fortified 
his opinions by facts of recent date at Montgomery 
and Richmond. Particulars need not be given, if, 
indeed, I could recall them; but the upshot of it all 
was, that in the opinion of many wise men the choice 
of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate 
States was a profound, perhaps a fatal, mistake. Un- 
able to controvert a single position taken by Clingman, 
151 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

my heart sank low, and never fully rallied, for the 
sufficient reason that Mr. Davis's career confirmed all 
that Clingman had said — all and more. 

As the plot thickened, so did occurrences in and 
around head-quarters. Beauregard kept open house, 
as it were, many people dropping in to the several 
meals, some by invitation, others not. The fare was 
plain, wholesome, and abundant, rice cooked in South 
Carolina style being a favorite dish for breakfast as 
well as dinner. The new brigadiers also dropped in 
upon us from time to time. One of them was my 
old school-mate, Robert E. Rodes, a Lynchburger by 
birth, but now in command of Alabama troops. In 
him Beauregard had special confidence, giving him the 
front as McDowell approached. Rodes was killed in 
the valley in 1864, a general of division, full of promise, 
a man of ability, a first-rate soldier. Lynchburg has 
reason to be proud of two such men as Garland and 
Rodes. Soldiers continued to arrive. As fast as they 
came they were sent toward Bull Run, that being our 
line of defence. Some regiments excited general ad- 
miration by their fine personal appearance, their excel- 
lent equipment and soldierly bearing. None surpassed 
the First Virginia Regiment in neatness or in drill — 
in truth, few approached it. The poorest set as to 
size, looks, and dress were some of the South Caro- 
linians. Louisiana sent a fine body of men. But by 
odds the best of our troops were the Texans. Gamer 
men never trod the earth. In their eyes and in their 
every movement they showed fight, and their career 
from first to last demonstrated the truth, in their case 
152 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

at least, of the old Latin adage, "Vidtus index est 
animi" — the face tells the character. I verily believe 
that fifty thousand Texans such as those who came to 
Virginia, properly handled, could whip any army the 
North could muster. 

But as a whole our men did not compare with the 
Union soldiery. They were not so large of limb, so 
deep in the chest, or so firm-set, and in arms and cloth- 
ing the comparison was still more damaging to the 
South. A friend of mine, who lingered in Washington 
till he could linger no longer, halted a day at Manassas 
on his way to his old home in Culpeper County. With 
great pride I called his attention to Hays's magnificent 
Louisiana regiment, one thousand four hundred strong, 
drawn out full length at dress parade. He shook his 
head, sighed heavily, and described the stout-built, 
superbly equipped men he had seen pouring by thou- 
sands upon thousands down Pennsylvania Avenue. 
This incident made little impression on me at the 
time, my friend being of a despondent nature; but 
after my talk with Colonel Clingman it returned to 
me, and, I confess, depressed me not a little. 

The camps were now deserted, the regiments being 
picketed on Bull Run, It was painful for me to go 
among the empty tents; it was like wandering about 
college in vacation — nay, worse, for it was morally cer- 
tain that some, perhaps many, would return to the 
tents no more. I missed the faces of my friends; I 
longed for the lemonade "with a stick in it" that 
Captain Shields and Dr. Palmer used to give whenever 
I made them a visit, and I really pined for the red shirt 
153 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

and cheery voice of Captain H. Grey Latham, as he 
went from tent to tent, telHng them new jokes, and on 
leaving, repeating his farewell formula, "Yours truly, 
John Dooly," which actually got to be funny by per- 
petual repetition and became a by-word throughout the 
army. Finally I got so sick of the deserted camp that 
I asked Clifton Smith to let me share his pallet in the 
litde shed-room cut off from the porch at head-quarters. 
He kindly assented, and I moved up, but still took my 
meals at camp. Doleful eating it would have been but 
for the occasional presence of my dear friend. Lieu- 
tenant Woodville Latham, who, being judge of a court- 
martial then in session, had not yet joined the Eleventh 
Virginia at Bull Run. 

The nights were so hot that I found it almost impossi- 
ble to sleep in Clifton Smith's little shed-room. My 
mind was excited by the approaching battle, and my 
habit of afternoon napping added to my sleeplessness. 
So the little sleep I got was in a chair on the porch. 
Near me, on the dinner-table, too long for any room in 
the house, lay young Goolsby, a lad of sixteen, who 
acted as night orderly. The calls upon him were so 
frequent and the pain of being awakened so great, that 
finally I said to him: "Sleep on, Goolsby, I'll take your 
place." He was very grateful. So I played night 
orderly from 12 o'clock till 6 A. M. thenceforward, and 
on that account slept the longer and the harder in the 
afternoon. Near sunset on the 18th I arose from 
Smith's pallet in the shed-room, washed my face, and 
walked out upon the porch. It was filled with officers and 
men, all looking toward Bull Run. One of them said: 
154 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

"That's heavier firing than any I heard during the 
war in Mexico." 

"It was certainly very heavy," was the reply, "but 
it seems to be over now." 

And that is all I know about the battle of the 18th. 
I had slept through the whole of it! Major Harrison, 
of our regiment, was killed; Colonel Moore, of the 
First Virginia Regiment, and Lieutenant James H. Lee, 
of the same regiment, were wounded, the latter seri- 
ously, as it turned out. There were no other casualties 
that particularly interested me. 

Every one knew the ordeal was at hand. The move- 
ments preceding the great tragedy had the hurry and 
convergence which belong to all catastrophes. A con- 
fused mixture of memories is left me — things relevant 
and irrelevant. L. W. Spratt, Thomas H. Wynne, 
Mrs. Bradley T. Johnson — the big guns of the in- 
trenched camp; the night arrival of Johnston's staff, 
the parting with my friend Latham — all these and 
many more recollections are piled up in my mind. 
Beauregard's plan of battle had been approved by 
General Johnston. Ewell was to attack McDowell's 
left at early dawn, flank him, and cut him off from 
Washington, our other brigades from left to right co- 
operating. Until midnight and later all of Colonel 
Jordan's clerks were busy copying the battle orders, 
which were at once sent off to the divisions and brigades 
by couriers. I myself made many copies. The last 
sentence I remember to this day; it read as follows: 
"In case the enemy is defeated he is to be pursued by 
cavalry and artillery until he is driven across the Poto- 
155 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

mac." He needed no pursuit, but went across the 
Potomac all the same. No, not all the same. Had 
we followed in force the result might have been differ- 
ent. I sat up as usual that night, but recall no event 
of interest. 

As morning dawned, I wondered and wondered why 
no, sound of battle was heard — none except the distant 
roar of Long Tom, which set the enemy in motion. 
How Ewell failed to get his order, how our plan of 
battle failed in consequence, and how near we came to 
defeat, is known to all. 'Tis an old, and to Confed- 
erates, a sad story. 

On the morning of the 18th, as Beauregard walked 
out to mount his horse, he stumbled and came near 
falling — a bad augury, which, we thought, brought a 
shadow over his face. But on this morning, the 21st 
all went well; the generals and their staffs, after an 
early breakfast, rode off in high spirits, victory in their 
very eyes. My duty was to look after the papers of 
the office, which had been hastily packed up, and, in 
case of danger, see that they were put on board a train, 
which was held in readiness to receive them and other 
valuable effects. The earth seemed to vomit men; 
they came in from all sides. Holmes, from Fredericks- 
burg, at the head of his division, in a high-crown, very 
dusty beaver, I well recollect. He made me laugh. 
Barksdale, of Mississippi, halting his regiment to get 
ammunition. The militia ensconced behind the earth- 
works of the intrenched camp, their figures flit before 
me. It was a superb Sabbath day, cloudless, and at 
first not very hot. A sweet breeze from the west blew 
156 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

in my face as I stood on a hill overlooking the vale of 
Bull Run. I saw the enormous column of dust made 
by the enemy as they advanced upon our left. The 
field of battle evidently would be where the comet, 
then illuminating the skies, seemed to rest at night. 
Returning to head-quarters I reported to Colonel Jor- 
dan the movement upon our left. 

"Has McDowell done that?" he asked, with ani- 
mation. "Then Beauregard will give him all his old 
boots, for that is exactly where we want him." 

The colonel meant that Ewell would have a better 
chance of attack by reason of the weakening of Mc- 
Dowell's left. 

Again and again I walked out to watch the progress 
of the battle, which lasted a great deal longer than I 
expected or desired. The pictures of battles at a 
distance, in the English illustrated papers, give a good 
idea of what I saw, minus the stragglers and the 
wounded, who came out in increasing numbers as the 
day advanced, and disheartening President Davis as 
he rode out to the field in the afternoon. At noon or 
thereabout a report that our centre had been broken 
hurried me back to head-quarters, and although the 
report proved false, kept me there for several hours, 
the battle meanwhile raging fiercely, and not a sound 
from Ewell. 

Restless and excited, I went into a neighboring 
house, occupied by a lone woman, who was in a peck 
of trouble about herself, her house, her everything. 
The bigger trouble outside filled my mind during the 
recital of her woes, so that I now recall none of them. 
157 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

Unable longer to bear the suspense, I left important 
papers, etc., to take care of themselves, and set out for 
the battle-field, determined to go in and get rid of my 
fears and doubts by action. I reached the hill which 
I had so often visited in the morning, and paused 
awhile to look at some of our troops, who were rapidly 
moving from our right to our left. Just then — can I 
ever forget it? — there came, as it seemed, an instan- 
taneous suppression of firing, and almost immediately 
a cheer went up and ran along the valley from end to 
end of our line. It meant victory — there was no mis- 
taking the fact. I stood perfectly still, feeling no 
exultation whatever. An indescribable thankful sad- 
ness fell upon me, rooting me to the spot and plunging 
me into a deep reverie, which for a long time prevented 
me from seeing or hearing what went forward. Night 
had nearly fallen when I came to myself and started 
homeward. The road was filled with wounded men, 
their friends, and a few prisoners. I spoke kindly to 
the prisoners, and took in charge a badly wounded 
young man, carrying him to the hospital, from the 
back windows of which amputated legs and arms had 
already been thrown on the ground in a sickening pile. 

At head-quarters there was a great crowd waiting for 
the generals and Mr. Davis to return. It was now 
quite dark. A deal of talking went on, but I observed 
little elation. People were worn out with excitement 
— too many had been killed — how many and who was 
yet to be learned. War is a sad business, even to the 
victors. I saw young George Burwell, fourteen years 
of age, bring in Colonel Corcoran, his personal captive. 
158 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

I heard Colonel Porcher Miles's withering retort to 
Congressman Ely, who tried to claim friendly acquaint- 
ance with him, but went off abashed in a linen duster 
with the other prisoners. I asked Colonel Preston 
what he thought of the day's work. 

"A glorious victory, which will produce immense 
results," was his reply. 

"When will we advance?" 

"We will be in Baltimore next week." 

How far wrong even the wisest are? We never 
entered Baltimore, and that victorious army, r ne-half 
of which had barely fired a shot, did not fight another 
pitched battle for nearly a year! 

It was after midnight when I carried to the tele- 
graph office Mr. Davis's despatch announcing the vic- 
tory. Inside the intrenched camp one thousand or 
twelve hundred prisoners were herded, the militia 
standing up side by side guarding them and forming a 
human picket-fence, funny to behold. It was clear 
as a bell when I walked back; the baleful comet hung 
over the field of battle; all was very still; I could 
almost hear the beating of my tired heart, that had 
gone through so much that day. Too much exhausted 
to play orderly, I slept in my chair like a top. 

The next day, Monday, the 22d, it rained, a steady, 
straight downpour the livelong day. Everybody 
flocked to head-quarters. Not one word was said about 
a forward movement upon Washington. We had too 
many generals-in-chief ; we were Southerners; we didn't 
fancy marching in the mud and rain — we threw away 
a grand opportunity. For days, for weeks, you might 
159 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

say, our friends kept coming from Alexandria, saying 
with wonder and impatience: "Why don't you come 
on? Why stay here doing nothing?" No sufficient 
answer, in my poor judgment, was ever given. 
The dead and the dying were forgotten in the general 
burst of congratulation. Now and then you would hear 
the loss of Bee and Bartow deplored, or of some indi- 
vidual friend it would be said: "Yes, he is gone, poor 
fellow"; but this was as nothing compared to the joy- 
ous hubbub over the victory. How proud and happy 
we were! Didn't we know that we could whip the 
Yankees ? Hadn't we always said so ? Henceforth it 
would be easy sailing — the war would soon be over, 
too soon for all the glory we felt sure of gaining. What 
fools! 

Captain H. Grey Latham, in his red shirt, was a 
conspicuous figure at head-quarters. His battery had 
covered itself with renown ; congratulations were show- 
ered upon him. I saw Captain (afterward colonel, on 
Lee's staff) Henry E. Peyton come over from General 
Beauregard's room blazing with excitement and exal- 
tation. Yesterday he was a private — now he was a 
captain, promoted by Beauregard first of all because 

of his signal gallantry on the field. "By -l" he 

exclaimed to me, "when I die, I intend to die glori- 
ously." Alas! Colonel Peyton, confidential clerk of 
the United States Senate and owner of one of the best 
farms in Loudoun County, is like to die in his bed as 
ingloriously as the rest of us. 

A young Mr. Faunderoy, desiring an interview with 
General Joseph E. Johnston, I offered to procure it 
160 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

for him, and pushed through the crowd to the table 
at which he sat. "Excuse me, General Johnston," I 
began. "Excuse me, sir!" he replied, in tones that 
sent me away in a state of demoralization. 

The next thing I remember is the coming on of 
night, and my resuming my post as night orderly. I 
was seldom aroused, and slept soundly in a chair, 
tilted back against the wall. In the yard just in front 
of me were a number of tents, one of which was occu- 
pied by President Davis. The rising sun awakened 
me. My eyes were still half open when Mr. Davis 
stepped out of his tent, in full dress, having made his 
toilet with care. Seeing no one but a private, appar- 
ently asleep in a chair, he looked about, turned, and 
slowly walked to the yard fence, on the other side of 
which a score or more of captured cannon were parked. 
Long Tom being conspicuous. The president stood 
and looked at the cannon for ten minutes or more. 
Having never seen him close at hand, I went up and 
looked at the cannon too, but in reality I was looking 
at him most intently. 

That was the turning-point in my life. Had I gone 
up to him, made myself known, told him what I had 
done in his behalf, and asked something in return, my 
career in life would almost certainly have been far 
different. We were alone. It was an auspicious time 
to ask favors — just after a great victory — and he was 
very responsive to personal appeals. My prayer would 
have been heard. In that event I should have become 
a member of his political and military family, or, what 
would have suited me much better, have gone to Lon- 
161 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

don, as John R. Thompson afterward did, to pursue in 
the interest of the Confederacy my calling as a jour- 
nalist. But Clingman's talk had done its work. Al- 
ready prejudiced against Mr. Davis, his face, as I 
examined it that fateful morning, lacked — or seemed 
to — the elements that might have overcome my preju- 
dices. There was no magnetism in it — it did not 
draw me. Yet his voice was sweet, musical in a high 
degree, and that might have drawn me had I but 
spoken to him. I could not force myself to open my 
lips, but walked back to my chair on the open porch, 
and my lot in life was decided. 

General Beauregard removed his head-quarters to 
the house of Mr. Ware, some distance from Manassas 
Station, a commodious brick building, in which our 
friend. Lieutenant James K. Lee, lay wounded. Mr. 
Ware's family remained, but most of the house was 
given up to us, I slept in the garret with the soldier 
detailed to nurse Lieutenant Lee. In the yard were~ 
a number of tents occupied by the general and his 
staff. Colonel Jordan's office was in the house. My 
duty, hitherto light and pleasant, now became some- 
what heavy and disagreeable. I had to file and for- 
ward applications for furlough, based mainly upon 
surgeons' certificates. This brought me in contact 
with many unlovely people, each anxious to have his 
case attended to at once. It was very worrying. 
Others beside myself, the clerks and staff officers, 
seemed to be as much worried by their labors as I was 
by mine. Fact is, young Southern gentlemen, used to 
having their own way, found it hard to be at the beck 
162 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

and call of anybody. The excitement of battle over, 
the detail of business was pure drudgery. We de- 
tested it. 

The long, hot days of August dragged themselves 
away. No advance, no sign of it; the men in camp 
playing cards, the officers horse-racing. This dis- 
heartened me more than all things else, but I kept my 
thoughts to myself. At night I would walk out in the 
garden and brood over the possible result of this slow 
way of making war. The garden looked toward the 
battle-field. At times I thought I detected the odor of 
the carcasses, lightly buried there; at others I fancied 
I heard weird and doleful cries borne on the night 
wind. I grew melancholy. 

Twice or thrice a day I went in to see Lieutenant 
Lee. Bright and hopeful of recovery, he gave his 
friends a cheery welcome and an invitation to share 
the abundant good things with which his mother and 
sisters kept him supplied. A visit to his sick chamber 
was literally a treat. The chances seemed all in his 
favor for two weeks or more after our arrival at the 
Ware house, but then there came a change for the 
worse, and soon the symptoms were such that his 
kinsman, Peachy R. Grattan, reporter of the court of 
appeals, was sent for. He rallied a little, but we saw 
the end was nigh. Mr. Grattan promised to send for 
me during the night in case anything happened, and 
at two o'clock I was called. The long respiration pre- 
ceding death had set in. Mr. Grattan, kneeling at the 
bedside, was praying aloud. The prayer ended, he 
called the dying officer by name. "James" (louder), 
163 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

"James, is there anything you wish done?" Lieu- 
tenant Lee murmured an inarticulate response, made 
an apparent effort to remove the ring from the finger 
of his left hand, and sank back into the last slumber. 
I waited an hour in silence; still the long-drawn 
breathing kept up. 

"No need to wait longer," said Mr. Grattan; "he 
will not rouse any more." 

I went to my pallet in the garret, but could not 
sleep; at dawn I was down again. The long breath- 
ing continued; Mr. Grattan sat close to the head of 
the bed and I stood at the foot, my gaze fixed on the 
dying man's face. Suddenly both his eyes opened 
wide; there was no "speculation" in them, but the 
whole room seemed flooded with their preternatural 
light. Just then the sun rose, and his eyes closed in 
everlasting darkness, to open, I doubt not, in ever- 
lasting day. So passed away the spirit of James K. 
Lee. 

A furlough was given me to accompany the remains 
to Richmond, with indefinite leave of absence, there 
being no sign of active hostilities. In view of my 
infirm health a discharge was granted me after my 
arrival in Richmond, and thus ended the record of an 
unrenowned warrior. 

Let me say a word or two in conclusion. In 1861 
I was thirty-three years old; now I am fifty-five, gray 
and aged beyond my years by many afflictions. I 
wanted to see a great war, saw it, and pray God I may 
never see another. I recall what General Duff Green, 
an ardent Southerner, said in Washington, in the win- 
164 



AN UNRENOWNED WARRIOR 

ter of 1861, to some hot-heads: "Anything, anything 
but war." So said William C. Rives to some young 
men in Richmond just after the fall of Sumter: 
"Young gentlemen, you are eager for war — you little 
know what it is you are so anxious to see." Those 
old men were right. War is simply horrible. The 
filth, the disease, the privation, the suffering, the muti- 
lation, and, above all, the debasement of public and 
private morals, leave to war scarcely a redeeming 
feature. 



165 



JOHN M. DANIEL'S LATCH-KEY* 

A MEMOIR OF THE EDITOR OF THE RICHMOND 
" EXAMINER " 

OOME days ago I found, in an old drawer, the latch- 
key which the editor of the Richmond Examiner 
gave me in 1863. It fitted the door of the house on 
Bsoad Street, opposite the African church — the house 
in which he died. A bit of brass, differing in nothing 
from others of its kind, this key, nevertheless, has its 
charm. It is the only souvenir I have of one of the 
most remarkable men Virginia ever produced. Com- 
ing upon it unexpectedly, after I had given it up as 
lost, the bare sight of it crowded my mind, in an in- 
stant, with pictures of its former owner. I saw him in 
Washington, just after his return from Europe, con- 

* In December, 1867, soon after the publication of the "Latch- 
Key" in the Native Virginian, I visited the city of Richmond, 
and, while there, was convinced that I had made, unwittingly, 
two decided errors: First, John M. Daniel did not write "The 
Parliament of Beasts." The real author is known, but his name 
is withheld for sufficient reasons. Second, the walk to Peters- 
burg was made, not for the purpose of lending, but of paying 
money which the editor of the Examiner had collected for his 
friend, the then artist Peticolas. This I learned from the diary 
which Daniel kept at that time, and which Mr. T. H. Wynne 
has now in his possession. In respect of other matters of fact, 
I believe the memoir is substantially correct. 

166 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

versing with Seddon and Garnett; in his own room 
over the Examiner office, as he sat lordhke, in a high 
arm-chair, in August, 1861, questioning me about the 
battle of Manassas and exhibiting the major's uniform 
which he intended to wear as aid to General Floyd; 
in the editorial room, cutting and slashing leaders 
which had been written for him, or denouncing fiercely 
the administration; at his dinner-table, pledging Wig- 
fall and Hughes in a glass of old Madeira; in the bed, 
where he lay wounded, after the duel with Elmore; 
and last of all, I saw his marble face — how changed ! — 
as he lay in his metallic coffin, March 31, 1865. 

All these likenesses of this strange man came vividly 
before me as I looked at the key of his door, and with 
them came a host of recollections, some of which I am 
now about to set down. Not that I have anything to 
tell which others could not tell as well, or better than 
myself. For it must not be inferred, because he gave 
me the privilege of entering his house at any hour of 
the day or night that pleased me, that I was the inti- 
mate personal friend of John M. Daniel. No; he 
took a short-lived fancy to me, and gave me his latch- 
key; that is all. While the fancy lasted I used the 
key but seldom, and after it died out, not at all. Doubt- 
less he soon forgot that he had ever given it to me. 
My aim is simply to put down, in chronological order, 
a number of incidents and sayings illustrative of the 
character of one who, in some respects, resembled John 
Randolph, of Roanoke, and who, like Randolph, was 
of a nature so peculiar that the most trivial reminis- 
cences can hardly fail to prove interesting to hundreds 
167 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

of thousands in the South, and to not a few in the 
North. 

My acquaintance with him began in Washington, 
after his return from Turin. He registered his name 
at Brown's Hotel, in a small hand, simply as "Mr. 
Daniel, Liverpool." Although I had never seen a 
scrap of his writing, I knew, the moment I saw his 
name on the register, that the man for whom so many 
were anxiously looking, had arrived. The next even- 
ing I was introduced to him. I had long been curi- 
ous to see "the great editor," and availing myself 
of his animated conversation with other visitors, eyed 
him intently, seeking in the outward man some indi- 
cation of the extraordinary being within. My search 
was not in vain. The poorest physiognomist could 
not have seen Daniel's face, even for a moment, with- 
out being attracted — I am tempted to say fascinated 
— by it. True, we always find what we are taught to 
expect in a face, and often discover what does not 
exist; but here was a countenance singularly marked 
— a dark, refined, decidedly Jewish face. The nose 
was not very large, and but slightly aquiline; the 
mouth thin-lipped, wide, unpleasing, and overhung 
by a heavy black mustache; the chin square, but not 
prominent; the cheeks thin; and both cheeks and 
chin covered by a dense, coarse, jet-black, closely 
trimmed beard; eyebrows very thick and black, shad- 
ing deep-set, rather small hazel eyes; head as small as 
Byron's or Brougham's, beautifully shaped and sur- 
mounted by masses of hair, which in youth hung long 
and lank and black to his coat collar, but in later life 
168 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

was worn close-cut. Such was John M. Daniel, as he 
sat before me in a room at Brown's Hotel, in the 
memorable winter of 1861. 

He was richly but plainly dressed. He talked 
freely upon the topics then uppermost in every South- 
ern mind, but there was a hesitation, or rather a trip- 
ping, amounting almost to a stammer, in his speech — 
the result, probably, of his long residence abroad and 
the constant use, in conversation, of French or Italian 
instead of the English language. This tripping had 
entirely disappeared when I met him, a few months 
later, in Richmond. It was not an affectation, as I 
had at first supposed. 

During a number of interviews which I had with him 
in Washington, he was always courteous, good-natured 
and talkative. His moroseness, his bitterness, of which 
I had heard so much, seemed to have been dissipated 
by the genial climate of Italy and the polite atmosphere 
of courts. One night, however, Floyd's name being 
mentioned in connection with the affair of the Indian 
Trust Bonds, some reckless person took it upon him- 
self to say that in the public opinion the then Secretary 
of War was "no better than a thief." Daniel flamed 
instantly. He rose from his chair with a white face 
and with trembling lips, and denounced the charge 
against Governor Floyd as an accursed slander. In 
proof that Floyd had not appropriated to his own use 
one cent of the public funds, he stated a fact, not to be 
mentioned here, which seemed to carry conviction to 
all who heard it. He was very much agitated; his 
passionate nature so overmastered him that he could 
169 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

not, although he tried to, resume his cahnness, and the 
party soon dispersed from the room. 

During his stay in Washington, which lasted two or 
three weeks, I met him but once after this exciting 
scene. He was then in Mr. Seddon's room, conversing 
with that distinguished member of the Peace Congress, 
and with the Hon. M. R. H. Garnett. Late English 
publications, relating to Continental and British poli- 
tics, were under discussion, and Daniel showed himself 
perfectly familiar with every book or pamphlet which 
the other gentleman had read. Litde was said so long 
as I was present about Federal politics. It cannot, 
however, be doubted that the Virginia editor was in 
the intimate counsels of the leaders of the Southern 
movement, and that, while he gave them the benefit 
of his eminently clear intellect, he in turn was enabled 
by their information and opinions to post himself 
thoroughly on all those points which were shortly to be 
brought before the public in the columns of the im- 
proved and, for the first time. Daily Examiner. 

The potent influence of this paper, from the mo- 
ment that Daniel resumed the helm, was felt not only 
in Virginia, but throughout the entire South. To this 
day, the effect of a single article, which appeared a few 
weeks after the Examiner began to be issued daily, is 
remembered by almost every man, woman, and child in 
Virginia. I allude, of course, to "The Parliament of 
Beasts," in which the members of the Virginia Con- 
vention, then in session, were likened to dogs, cats, 
owls, opossums, and other members of the animal 
kingdom. The likenesses were so happily and so 
170 



JOHN M. DANIEL'S LATCH-KEY 

trenchantly drawn that it was impossible to mistake 
them, and many hundreds, if not thousands, of copies 
of the issue containing the article were sold in a few 
hours. Some offence was given, but so much humor, 
and wit so genuine were mingled with the satire, that 
the Union men, who were most offended, were obliged 
to join in the laugh at their own caricatures. "Who 
is the author?" was in everybody's mouth. This ques- 
tion was never satisfactorily answered. The article 
appeared as a contribution, but in editorial type, and 
the great majority of people suspected that Daniel 
himself was the author. This, however, was denied, 
and many conjectures were made as to the man, in or 
out of Virginia, who was capable of doing so clever a 
thing. Two years or more after its appearance, while 
sitting alone with Daniel, I asked him to tell me in 
confidence who the real author was. He was pacing 
the floor of his sanctum, as was his wont. He stopped 
abruptly, put his hands in his pockets, turned his face 
toward me, and said, with the utmost gravity: 

"No one knows better than yourself who wrote that 
article." 

"Nonsense," I replied; "I really want to know. 
Tell me. I pledge you my word that I will never 
reveal the secret until you give me permission to do so." 

He looked keenly at me, as if to ascertain whether I 
could be trusted, and for a moment I felt sure that he 
was going to tell me; but turning suddenly on his heel, 
he began again to pace the floor in silence. He refused 
to tell me even the author of the paraphrase in verse, 
which appeared some time after the original. I have 
171 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

scarcely a doubt but that he himself wrote the original 
in prose, and I think I can make a very good guess as 
to the authorship of the poetic version. The latter I 
attribute to the same hand which penned "Fie! Mem- 
minger," and similar articles in rhyme, which were 
printed in the Examiner during the years 1864-5. 

In May, 1861, I went to Manassas with the first 
battalion sent thither from Richmond. No sooner was 
I upon the ground than I felt, as by prescience, rather 
than by any comprehension of the strategic value of 
the position, that the place was to be the scene of a 
great battle; and shortly afterward, with the aid of my 

friend. Lieutenant L , embodied my views and 

apprehensions in an article of considerable length, 
which I sent to the Examiner — no order to the con- 
trary having then been issued. Daniel thought it 
imprudent to publish the article, but was so pleased 
with it that he continued to send me, as long as I 
remained at Manassas, five copies of his daily paper. 
He also offered me my own price for any letters I might 
choose to write him. Even had it been lawful, I could 
not have accepted his proposition, for the reason that 
the fatigues of incessant drilling left me little inclina- 
tion and less ability to write even to my own father. 
But the prompt recognition of the little service I had 
rendered him — a promptness which, as I afterward 
discovered, was characteristic of Daniel — and doubt- 
less a good deal of gratified vanity at the estimate he 
had placed on my contribution, impelled me to call on 
him as soon as I reached Richmond, in August, after 
the great battle. 

172 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

He was then living in two rooms, handsomely fitted 
up, in the second story of the Examiner building. 
The front room he used as a bedchamber, the back 
room as a sanctum and a hall of audience for his many 
visitors. In the latter were a number of easy chairs; 
and one in particular, which he preferred above all the 
rest. It was a sort of barber's chair, covered with horse- 
hair, and elevated much more than ordinary chairs 
above the floor. From this seat, as from a throne, he 
looked down upon and conversed with his visitors; 
and to me at least (I know not how it was with others) 
his words descended from their elevation with a cer- 
tain authority, as from a true cathedra. 

The day was warm, and the editorial pontiff was by 
no means in his robes of office. He wore neither coat 
nor vest, only a pair of white duck pantaloons. He 
looked spotlessly clean, cool, and comfortable. His 
reception was kind, almost to cordiality. He talked 
freely about the war, about the generals, and the plans 
of campaign, but was very guarded in his comments 
upon the administration, which, up to this time, he had 
heartily supported. Indeed, the Examiner was, for 
many months after the war began, regarded as the 
organ of the administration. Full of his expected 
campaign with Floyd, he told me, with an air of satis- 
faction, how he intended to be comfortable and to 
escape the filth and misery of camp life. He was going 
en grand tenue — with a chest stored with the good 
things of this life, a tent of his own fashioning, a com- 
plete cooking apparatus, his own cook and his own 
valet. 

173 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

I asked him if he had no fear of being killed or 
wounded. He replied that he did not think he would 
be killed, and that the chances were that he would not 
be wounded. "I hate pain," said he; "I cannot bear 
it, and yet I, should like to be able to show an honor- 
able scar in this cause." His campaign in south-west- 
ern Virginia was not of long duration. I am satisfied, 
from what he afterward told me, that he joined General 
Floyd, not for a holiday, but with the purpose of win- 
ning military glory. He was ambitious in everything 
he undertook, and on more than one occasion he ex- 
pressed to me a great regret at having left the army. 
"By this time" (the winter of 1864), said he, "I might 
have been a brigadier — perhaps a major-general." 

"But," said I, "as the editor of the Examiner, you 
are exerting an influence far greater than any brigadier 
— greater, perhaps, than any major-general." 

"True," he answered; "but what good is the 
Examiner, or any other paper, or all the papers in 
the Confederacy combined, doing? Besides, I like to 
command men. I love power." 

After the interview in August, 1861, I saw very 
little of him for two years. I met him occasionally on 
the street, but his manner was so repelling that I was 
deterred from gratifying the desire, which I often felt, 
of going to see him. With his old habits had come 
back his old ways — he was as cold, self-contained and 
gloomy as he had been before he went to Europe. Af- 
fairs were not going in the fashion that suited him. 
Grave doubts were beginning to arise in his mind. He 
still had hopes, and often high hopes, of the success of 
174 



JOHN M. DANIEL'S LATCH-KEY 

the cause, but the course of the administration excited 
continually the bitterness of his nature. Then, again, 
the whole weight of the Examiner, which he frequently 
described to me "as a mill-stone about his neck," was 
upon him. Convinced that his editorial labors were 
well nigh useless, in so far as they influenced the con- 
duct of the war, the finances, or anything else pertain- 
ing to the policy of Mr. Davis, it was but natural that 
his mental energies should flag and his wonderful 
powers of composition should be abated. He was 
anxious to get an assistant, but could find no one to 
suit him. He had fallen out with one whose brilliant 
and humorous pen had served him so well in former 
years. Edward A. Pollard was in ill health, and had 
started, or was about to start, for Europe, and he had 
not succeeded in getting the two or three writers, whose 
contributions, a few months later, added so greatly to 
the value and the interest of the Examiner. 

It was at this time, in the summer of 1863, while on 
a visit to the country, that I amused myself one evening 
by writing a satirical article on the then exciting sub- 
ject of the removal of the quartermaster-general. This 
I sent to Daniel. What was my surprise by return 
mail, to receive from R. F. Walker, the manager of the 
Examiner, a flattering letter, telling me of Daniel's 
high appreciation of my article, and his desire to secure 
my services as assistant editor. An engagement on 
another paper prevented me from accepting the prof- 
fered situation; moreover I knew well that Daniel was 
a "hard master." Nevertheless, I was anxious to see 
in print an article which had received the approval of 
175 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

such a critic as John M. Daniel. I looked each day, 
but never saw it. I own that I felt chagrined. My 
only conclusion was that Daniel, at a first reading, had 
overestimated the merits of the article, and that a sub- 
sequent perusal, revealing faults which he had not 
before detected, had determined him not to publish it. 

On my return to Richmond, I felt litde desire to 
meet any of the Examiner people; but passing Walker 
one day on the street, he hailed me and told me to 
come to the office; he had some money for me. 

"Money for what?" I inquired. 

"For that article you sent down. Don't you remem- 
ber it?" 

"I remember it distinctly, but I also remember that 
you never printed it." 

Walker was positive that the article had been printed, 
and I no less positive that it had not. Finally he 
referred me to Mr. Daniel, and to him, accordingly, I 
went. He received me kindly, complimented my arti- 
cle extravagantly, as I thought, and asked me if Walker 
had paid me for it. I was a good deal nettled, sup- 
posing that he was making fun of me. I told him in 
reply, that Walker had offered to pay me much more 
than the article was worth, according to the established 
rates of the Examiner (which I knew), but that I had 
refused payment on the ground that the article had 
never appeared. His eye twinkled mischievously, as 
he said: 

"You didn't see it, because you didn't read the 
Examiner. The Examiner contains the best thoughts 
of the best minds in the Confederacy, expressed in the 
176 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

best manner — it is the organ of the thinking gentlemen 
of the country. You ought by all means to read it. 

There is the file; look at the number for , and 

you will find your article." 

I looked, and sure enough, there was an article twice 
as long and twice as good as the one I had written — 
my own ideas, but so enveloped in Daniel's fine English, 
and so amplified that it was hard to recognize them. 

I have purposely related this incident at some length, 
because it illustrates Daniel's character and unfolds 
one of the secrets of his great success as an editor. He 
begrudged no labor in elaborating and improving an 
article which pleased him. I remember his telling me 
that he had written a certain article over four or five 
times. The original draft was sent to him by a lady 
distinguished for her attainments and performances in 
literature. It was a defence of his favorite general. 
He was gallant to a degree and the warmest of parti- 
sans; and both his gallantry and his friendship being 
aroused, he exerted himself to the utmost to make the 
article as printed a telling one. If I am not mistaken, 
I have this identical article now in my possession. It 
is headed, Ohe! jam satis. 

Although I would not accept the place of assistant, 
and could by no means have filled it to his satisfaction 
if I had, I was glad enough, in order to eke out my 
narrow living, to enter into an engagement to furnish 
him with two or three editorials a week — an engage- 
ment which lasted for several months. It was at this 
time that he gave me his latch-key and I became some- 
what intimate with him. I made many visits to him 
177 



JOHN M. DANIEL'S LATCH-KEY 

at his house on Broad Street; and had many talks with 
him on all sorts of subjects. He was not a secretive 
man; on the contrary, he conversed with the utmost 
freedom about himself, his early life, his residence 
abroad, his relatives and friends, his political associates 
and opponents, indeed almost everything. Unless he 
happened to be out of humor (which was not often the 
case at his private residence), he loved to talk; and 
though a recluse, he was delighted with the visits of 
gentlemen who came without solicitation on his part 
and who called in a friendly and social way. He urged 
me to visit him at night, and in order to tempt me to 
repeat my visits would give me each time what was 
then a great and costly treat, a bottle of English ale. 
This he repeated several times, but finding that I did 
not play chess and was a much better listener than 
talker, in fact, that I could not talk well enough to 
provoke him to talk, he soon became tired of my 
visits — a fact of which he gave me convincing proof by 
yawning in my face! 

This house on Broad Street and his mode of living 
deserve notice. The house was of brick, three stories 
high, commodious and comfortable. It was one of a 
number of investments in real estate which he made 
during the war. Although no human being but him- 
self inhabited this house — the servants being restricted 
to the kitchen of four rooms in the back yard — he lived, 
literally, all over it. The front room on the first floor 
was his parlor. In it were two large oil paintings, 
works of decided merit, a mosaic chess table and a 
few mahogany chairs. Sometimes he received his 
178 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

visitors in the parlor, but more often in the dining- 
room adjoining, where he kept a table for writing 
and his iron safe. A handsome sideboard and a set 
of solid dining tables of antique pattern graced this 
apartment. He was fond of telling that these tables 
once belonged to "old Memminger," and were bought 
when the worthy Secretary of the Treasury broke up 
housekeeping on Church Hill. The front room in the 
second story was his chamber, and the passage-room 
adjoining, his dressing closet. A tall mirror, which 
reached from the floor almost to the ceiling, was fast- 
ened to the wall between the two front windows. 
Hard by was a large cheval glass, by means of which 
he was enabled to see his whole figure, front and rear, 
from head to foot. He was not a fop, but he was fond 
of dress, and had an eye to appearance, not only in 
person, but in print. He had a horror of slovenliness. 
A carelessly written editorial was his abomination. 
He used to say that a man who goes into print ought to 
remember that he is making his appearance before the 
very best society, and that he owes it both to himself 
and to that society not to appear in undress. When 
an acquaintance of the writer of this article was mar- 
ried in church, one February afternoon in 1863, John 
M. Daniel was there in a long-tail coat and white 
waistcoat. He believed in white waistcoats. He told 
his manager, Walker, that he ought never to go to a 
party without wearing a white vest. 

"But, Mr. Daniel," objected Walker, "suppose a 
man hasn't got a white vest and is too poor, these war 
times, to buy one?" 

179 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

"D — n it! sir, let him stay at home." 

Besides the mirror, the cheval glass and a few chairs, 
there was no other furniture in his chamber, except an 
old-fashioned high-post bedstead, which, together with 
most of his furniture, he had bought at the sales of the 
refugees once wealthy. He believed in blood, in fami- 
lies of ancient and honorable descent, in gentlemen, 
and preferred the workmanship and antiquated style 
of things which had descended as heirlooms in the 
houses of gentlemen to the costliest and most tasteful 
productions of modern cabinet-makers. There was no 
carpet on the floor of his chamber, and he slept without 
a fire. In the morning a fire was built in the room 
next to his chamber, and there his breakfast was gen- 
erally served between eleven and twelve o'clock. He 
seldom went to bed before two or three o'clock in the 
morning. This back room in the second story had a 
bed in it and was used as a guest chamber, but I do 
not remember to have known or heard of but one 
occupant — R. W. Hughes. He made Daniel's house 
his home whenever he came to town. 

Adjoining the dressing-room, in the passage of the 
second floor, was the bath room. Leaning against the 
door of this bath room I used to see a bag of Java 
coffee, which made my mouth water every time I 
looked at it, for coffee, in those days, was twenty to 
thirty dollars a pound. 

The first room in the third story was used as a sort 

of lumber room, A barrel or two of white sugar, a 

few boxes of manufactured tobacco, and some large 

empty boxes, which had contained books, were there 

ISO 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

the last time I looked in. The little room, cut off from 
the passage, was the library. The number of books 
was not what one would have expected. A complete 
set of Voltaire's works; the Delphin edition of the 
classics, complete; Swift's Works, Clarendon's Re- 
bellion, and a few miscellaneous books are all that I 
can now recall. Most, if not all, of these editions 
were old and rare; and strange to tell, most of them 
were bought at private sale or at auction during the 
war. Daniel was an omnivorous reader, but had a 
sovereign contempt for the so-called "literature of the 
day." The first Napoleon, riding post in his carriage 
to the theatre of war, amused himself by dipping into 
books just published and pitching one after another 
out of the window. This was much the way with 
John M. Daniel, before he went abroad, when, in his 
capacity as editor of the Examiner, all the new publica- 
tions were sent to him. He never cared to keep them 
— either gave or threw them away, and if he had occa- 
sion to make an extract from one of them, used his 
scissors remorselessly. 

The back room, in the third story, was a favorite 
one with him. Like all the other rooms, it was taste- 
fully and cheerfully papered. It commanded a view 
of James River, the Hills of Henrico, and the wide low- 
lands and woods of Chesterfield. Having a southern 
exposure, there was always plenty of light in the after- 
noon, and the room was easily made warm and com- 
fortable. Here he loved to sit in a leather-bottomed 
chair, with a little table near him, reading Voltaire, 
the Latin poets, or contributions and communications 
181 



JOHN M. DANIEL'S LATCH-KEY 

to the Examiner. In this room he kept his collection 
of medals and seals; a violin lay in its wooden case on 
the floor, stringless and unused. A moody man, he 
sometimes deserted this pleasant room and confined 
himself for weeks to the rooms on the lower floors. 

He lived well, but not luxuriously. He detested 
hotels and boarding-houses. When he lived in rooms 
over his office, he had his meals sent to him by Tom 
Griffin or Zetelle. After he went to housekeeping, his 
negro cook was his caterer. The day I dined at his 
house with Wigfall and Hughes, he had but one course, 
a single joint of meat, a few vegetables, no desert, 
coffee, and wine — Madeira from Governor Floyd's 
cellar, which Hughes had brought with him. That 
evening he called for "another bottle," after the rest 
were satisfied; but I never saw him intoxicated, and 
on one occasion only under the influence of wine even 
in a slight degree. Then his eyes were a little glassy, 
his manner dogmatic, and he rocked a little as he stood 
up in front of me and laid down the law in regard to 
things political. Whiskey he hated with his whole 
heart. I have heard him curse it and its effects most 
bitterly, and once wrote, at his special request, an 
article beginning, "Whiskey, not the Yankee, is to be 
the master of the Confederacy." The feebleness of his 
digestion compelled him to be temperate both in eating 
and drinking. I have heard him say that a single 
glass of whiskey and water taken at night, by prescrip- 
tion of his physician, would give him headache the 
next day. 

Coffee was his favorite stimulant, but I do not think 
182 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

he used it to excess. He was so fond of it that he would 
not rest until he had taught his pet terriers to drink it. 
These dogs — "Frank" and "Fanny" were their names, 
I believe — he loved, but in his own fashion. He de- 
lighted in teasing and worrying them; would pinch 
and pull their ears until they yelped with pain, and was 
never more pleased than when he succeeded in getting 
up a mild fight between them. This was not easy to 
do, because "Fanny" was "Frank's" mother; and, 
when he was set upon her, went to work with rather a 
bad grace, while she bore his attacks with exemplary 
patience. When Daniel got tired of playing with his 
pets, who were devoted to him, he would drive them 
away with his horsewhip. Yet he never laid on with 
the full weight of his hand. He was cruel to them at 
times, but never brutal. 

I asked him one day if his solitary mode of life did 
not make him suffer from ennui. "Yes," said he, 
wearily, "but I am used to it." 

"Don't you find solitary feeding injurious to your 
health ? I tried it once at college, and, within a week, 
I was made positively sick by it." 

"You are right," he replied. "It hterally destroys 
the appetite. In Turin, I employed an Italian count 
as my chef de cuisine. He was really an artist in his 
profession, and exerted all his powers to please me. 
He had carte blanche as to expense, and sent me up 
every day the most tempting dishes. I could taste 
them — that was all. I never enjoyed a meal at home. 
Whereas, when invited to dine in the country with a 
pleasant party of ladies and gentlemen — would you 
183 



believe it? — I would sometimes be helped three times 
to meat." 

I asked him then, as I had often done before, why 
he did not marry. He was always pleased when the 
subject was broached, and I am sure we must have 
had, first and last, a dozen conversations on this topic 
alone. After discussing the pros and cons, he gener- 
ally wound up by declaring that, if he ever married, 
it must be with the explicit understanding that himself 
and his wife should occupy separate houses. To this 
end, he often threatened to buy the house next to his 
own and have a door cut in the partition wall, the key 
of which he would keep in his own pocket. "The 
noise of children and the gabble of a woman with her 
lady friends was something which he could not and 
would not stand." 

He was a warm admirer of the female sex, but his 
opinion of them was not the most exalted. Social life 
on the Continent did not tend to weaken his natural 
prejudice against mankind, and probably lessened his 
esteem for the fairer portion of humanity. Over the 
mantle-shelf in his chamber hung an exquisite minia- 
ture on ivory. The face was, beyond question, the 
most beautiful I have ever seen, and the execution was 
worthy of the subject. This picture was presented to 
him by the lady who painted it, and it was her own 
likeness. According to his account, she was titled, 
rich, marvellously accomplished in music, painting and 
poetry, eccentric, reckless alike of herself and of others. 
Her name he would never tell me. He confessed to 
other fancies while in Europe, but did not acknowl- 
184 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

edge, and I believe did not have, a serious affair during 
the whole seven years of his residence abroad. It is 
said that his heart was never touched but once, and 
then by a beautiful Virginian. This was before he 
left America. He told me frequently that it was im- 
possible for him to love a girl who was not pretty, and 
yet he would shudder at the thought of uniting himself 
to a "pretty fool." It was to no purpose that I in- 
sisted that true beauty was of the soul alone. He 
hooted at this doctrine as "a stale lie." Beauty of 
face he might possibly dispense with, but beauty of 
form — beauty of some sort — a graceful figure and high- 
bred manner were absolutely essential. Happening, 
one evening, to express in his hearing my regret that I 
was not acquainted with some young lady in Richmond 
who played well on the piano, he started almost as if 
I had stabbed him, and gave vent to an exclamation of 
the most intense disgust — as if the bare idea of a piano- 
playing young lady nauseated him. His theory about 
the management of women was simple and original. 
"There are," he would say, "but two ways to manage 
a woman — to club her or to freeze her." 

His menage in 1863-4 consisted of three servants, 
all males — a cook, an hostler, and a valet, who also 
acted as his dining-room servant. His manner toward 
the boy who waited in the house was rough even to 
harshness. He liked his hostler, and spoke kindly to 
him, whenever I happened to see them together. I do 
not wonder that his house servants ran away from him. 
He lost two within as many years. One was caught, 
punished and immediately sold. The other, for whom 
185 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

he offered a reward of $2,000, made good his escape. 
After that, he bought a very Hkely woman, nearly white, 
who remained with him until his death. 

Such was John M. Daniel at home. What he was 
at his office, I will now proceed to tell. Whilst I was 
contributing to his paper, my habit was to hand my 
article to the manager in the morning, and at night 
I would go around to read the proof. Daniel himself 
always read the proofs, though not with as much pains 
as I liked. He reached the office generally between 
eight and nine o'clock, and I was almost always there 
before him. In those days garroters were abundant, 
and the first thing he did, after entering the room, was 
to lay a Derringer pistol, which he carried in his hand 
ready for any emergency, on the large table which sat 
in the middle of the floor. This done, he would offer 
me a cigar — he could never be persuaded to smoke a 
pipe, and his cigars were of the weakest — and then 
begin the work of examining proofs. First, the proofs 
of the news columns, then of legislative or congres- 
sional proceedings, next the local news, and lastly the 
editorials. All these he examined with care, altering, 
erasing, abridging and adding as he thought fit. Even 
the advertisements were submitted to him, and I have 
known him to become furious over an advertisement 
which he thought ought not to have been admitted. 

He was the only newspaper proprietor I ever heard 
of who would throw out, without hesitation, paying 
advertisements, sometimes of much importance to ad- 
vertisers, in order to make room for editorials, or for 
contributions which particularly pleased him. Often- 
186 



JOHN M. 

times his news column was reduced to the last point of 
compression to make room for editorial matter. The 
make-up of his paper engaged his serious attention, and 
I have known him to devote nearly half an hour to the 
discussion of the question where such and such an 
article should go, and whether it should be printed 
in "bourgeois," "brevier," or "leaded minion." He 
loved to have two or three really good editorials in each 
issue of his paper. Short, pointed articles he had lit- 
tle faith in, believing that the length of a column, or a 
column-and-a-half, was essential to the effect of an 
article. The London Times was his model, and he 
promised himself, in case the Confederate cause suc- 
ceeded, to make the Examiner fully equal to its English 
model. A pungent paragraph was relished by him as 
much as by any human being — indeed, he was quick 
to detect excellence in anything, long or short — but 
the sub-editorial, or "leaded minion" column, was 
left apart for just such paragraphs, and the dignity of 
the editorial column was but once, within my recollec- 
tion, trenched upon. Even then the article was a 
short editorial rather than a paragraph. It was near 
the close of the war, when, despairing of the cause, he 
urged, in a few strong sentences, the duty of Virginia 
to hold herself in readiness to resume her sovereignty, 
and to act for herself alone in the great emergency 
which he felt was approaching. I am inclined to think 
this was the last article he ever penned. 

Laying so much stress upon editorials, it was but 
natural that he should pay particular attention to cor- 
recting them. This, in fact, was his main business in 
187 



JOHN M. 

coming to his office at night. At times he preferred to 
do his own writing, but in general, and certainly in the 
last year or two of his life, he much preferred to have 
his ideas put into words by others. Then he would 
alter and amend to suit his fastidious taste. Any 
fault of grammar or construction, any inelegance, he 
detected immediately. He improved by erasure as 
much, or more, than by addition; but when a thought 
in the contributed article was at all suggestive, he 
seldom failed to add two or three, and sometimes ten, 
and even twenty lines to it. This was a labor of love 
to him, and did not fatigue him as it does most people. 
On the other hand, he disliked extremely to read manu- 
script. This sometimes brought trouble upon him. 
Coming in one night he found on the table the proof of 
an article on finance which I had written. He read it 
over carefully, and, to my surprise, did not put his 
pencil through a single line of it. Whilst I was plum- 
ing myself on this unusual circumstance, he looked up 
at me and laughed. 

"Very well written," said he, "but diametrically 
opposed to the views of the Examiner." 

Too old a hand at the bellows to be disgrunded by 
this, I replied quietly: 

"Pitch it in the fire." 

"What! and fill two columns myself between this 
and midnight ? This is every line of editorial on hand." 

"I am really very sorry. But what is to be done? 
It is impossible for me to write any more. I never 
can write after dinner; besides, I am broken down." 

"Let me see. Let me see." 
188 



JOHN M. DANIEL'S LATCH-KEY 

He took up the unlucky editorial, read it over more 
carefully than before, and then said, in a tone of great 
satisfaction: "I can fix it." 

And so he did. Sitting down at the table, he went 
to work, and within twenty minutes transformed it 
completely. It appeared the next morning. There 
were certain awkwardnesses, which we two, who were 
in the secret, could detect, but which to the bulk of the 
readers of the paper were doubtless quite imperceptible. 

When he had to write an article himself, his first 
question, after the usual salutation, was, not "What is 
the news?" but "What are people talking about?" 
and he upbraided me continually for not doing what 
he himself never did, "circulating among the people." 
He aimed always to make his paper interesting by the 
discussion of subjects which were uppermost in the 
popular mind; nor did it concern him much what the 
subject might be. His only concern was that it should 
be treated in the Examiner with dignity and ability, if 
it admitted of such treatment; if not to dispose of it 
humorously or wittily. But the humor or wit must be 
done cleverly and with due attention to style. He 
began to write about ten o'clock; wrote rapidly, in a 
crumpled, ugly hand, and completed his work, revi- 
sion of proofs, and everything by midnight, or a little 
thereafter. He then returned to his house, and either 
sat up or laid awake in bed, reading, until two or three 
o'clock in the morning. 

His assistants in 1863-64, besides reporters, were 
the local editor, J. Marshall Hanna; the news editor, 
H. Rives Pollard; and the editor of the "leaded min- 
189 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

ion" or war column, P. H. Gibson, He had a high 
opinion of them all. Pollard he declared was "the 
best news editor in the whole South." Hanna he 
pronounced "a genius in his way," and took great 
credit to himself for having discovered, developed, and 
fostered him, Gibson's ability he acknowledged and 
complimented frequently in my hearing. 

The business of the office gave him very little trouble. 
He had, of course, an eye to everything; but the print- 
ing floor, the press-room, the sale and distribution of 
papers, mailing, the payment of employees, the settle- 
ment of bills, in a word, the finance, outdoor transac- 
tions, and banking business, were all attended to by R. 
F. Walker, the manager. He had but a single book- 
keeper, a gentleman of the name of Gary, who was 
also his cashier. Walker was his faithful assistant in 
everything, from the purchasing of type, and glue for 
rollers, to correspondence with men of business, and 
oftentimes with politicians and contributors. At the 
end of every week Walker brought to the house, on 
Broad Street, the bank book, posted up to date. I was 
permitted several times to look at this book. The 
net receipts per week, in 1863-4, were from $1,000 to 
$1,200 or $1,500. After deducting personal expenses 
of every kind (and Daniel never stinted himself in 
anything), it may be safely assumed that in the third 
year of the war the paper cleared at least $50,000, per- 
haps double that amount. The owner was often on 
the lookout for investments, and made a number of 
purchases of real estate. He may have speculated, but 
if he did, the speculations must have been on a small 
190 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

scale. During my visits to his house I never saw there 
any one of the men who were known in Richmond to 
be largely in speculation. Moreover, his paper, in 
common with others, contained denunciation after de- 
nunciation of speculators of all sorts, and was particu- 
larly severe upon brokers, gamblers, and whiskey sel- 
lers. Toward the close of the war, when investments 
of all sorts were doubtful, I suggested to him that he 
had better buy gold. His reply was, "I have more 
gold now than I know what to do with." I am per- 
suaded, however, that this gold was part of the $30,000 
in coin, or its equivalent, which he brought over with 
him from Sardinia. 

I have said that he never stinted himself, and this is 
true. His table, indeed, was never loaded with luxu- 
ries and delicacies — which might have been bought at 
almost any period of the war, if one chose to pay the 
enormous prices asked for them — for the reason that 
his digestion would not tolerate anything but the 
simplest food; but his self-indulgence was notably 
shown in articles of dress, in coal, and in gas. He 
brought with him from Europe clothes enough to have 
lasted him years, but he never scrupled to buy a 
thousand-dollar suit whenever he fancied he needed it. 
When coal was very high, and one fire would have 
sufficed him, he kept two or three burning. Gas was 
costly in the extreme; two burners of his chandelier 
would have afforded him ample light — for he had excel- 
lent eyes — but he was not content until he had all six of 
the burners at their full height. In reply to my remon- 
strance against this extravagance, he would say curtly : 
191 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

"I like plenty of light." 

If at his house Daniel was affable and almost genial, 
in his office he was, too frequently, on the other ex- 
treme. He loved to show his authority, and, as the 
saying is, "to make things stand around." His scowl 
at being interrupted, while in the act of composing, or 
when otherwise busily engaged, will never be forgotten 
by any one who ever encountered it. Holding drunken 
men in special detestation, he was, as by a fatality, 
subjected continually to their visits, both at his office 
and at his house. More than once I have been suffi- 
ciently diverted by intoxicated officers, just from the 
army, who called in to pay, in person, their maudlin 
tribute of admiration to the editor of the Examiner. 
Sometimes he bore these visitations with a patience that 
surprised me; but he never failed to remunerate him- 
self by awful imprecations upon the intruder as soon 
as he was out of hearing. While his tone to his em- 
ployees was, as a general rule, cold, and often intoler- 
ably dictatorial, I have seen him, very frequently, as 
affable and familiar as heart could wish. Indeed, I 
have known him to go so far as to come out of his sanc- 
tum into the small room occupied by his sub-editors 
with the proof of a contribution in his hand, in order 
that they might enjoy it with him. Occurrences of 
this sort, however, were rare. 

Belonging essentially to the genus irritabile, his anger 
was easily provoked. He could not bear to be crossed 
in anything. Whoever said aught in print against 
"the Examiner newspaper," was sure to bring down 
upon himself a torrent of abuse. Possessing in an 
192 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

eminent degree, and, indeed, priding himself upon his 
sense of the becoming and the decorous, he was no 
sooner engaged in a newspaper controversy than he 
forgot, or at least threw behind him, the sense even of 
decency, and heaped upon his adversary epithets which 
ought never to have defiled the columns of a respect- 
able journal. This was kept up, sometimes, long after 
the original heat of the controversy had abated — his 
purpose being, as I suppose, to give the opposing 
paper, and others, a lesson which would never be for- 
gotten, and thus to ensure himself against similar an- 
noyances in the future. To avoid trouble and to 
maintain the Times-like character of the Examiner, his 
rule was never to notice the opinions of other papers, 
and not even to quote from them. He waited to be 
attacked; but when attacked, he followed the advice of 
Polonius to the very letter. But his hottest anger and 
his bitterest maledictions were reserved for his political 
enemies. His rage against the administration of Mr. 
Davis, and particularly certain members of his cabinet, 
was, at times, terrible. In like manner, the journal- 
istic partizans of the administration came in for a full 
share of his fury, I shall never forget his excitement, 
one night, on hearing that a certain article in the Eti- 
quirer had been written by a person formerly in his 
employ. I can see him now, striding up and down 
the room, exclaiming, "I'll put a ball through him!" 
"I'll put a ball through him!" This sentence he re- 
peated fully twenty times, and in a tone which gave 
assurance of a purpose quite as deadly as his words 
imported. Yet nothing came of it. He was a hearty 
193 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

and persistent hater, but he was not implacable. Dur- 
ing his stormy life he had many fallings out and many 
makings up. It is not unsafe to assert that he never 
had a friend with whom, at some time, he did not have 
a misunderstanding; yet it is certain that he died in 
perfect peace, and on good terms with all, or nearly all, 
of his old friends. One of the last and most pleasing 
acts of his life was the glad acceptance with which he 
met the advance of his friend, Mr. Thomas H. Wynne, 
from whom he had been estranged during nearly the 
whole war. 

His enmity to Mr. Davis, amounting to something 
like a frenzy, will be ascribed, by those who differed 
from him in opinion, to a bad heart, pique at not being 
made the confidential friend of the president, or at not 
having been sent abroad in a diplomatic capacity. 
But by those, on the other hand, who agreed with him 
in thinking that the cause suffered more from mal- 
administration than from anything or all things else, 
his course will not be so harshly judged; and their 
chief regret will be that arguments so forcible as 
Daniel's were not left to produce their effect, unaided, 
or rather unimpeded, by diatribe and invective. To 
reconcile these conflicting opinions is impossible, and 
if it were not, is beyond the intent and aim of this 
sketch. I remember asking him once whether Mr. 
Davis ever saw his animadversions upon him. 

"They tell me down stairs," he replied, "that the 

first person here in the morning is Jeff. Davis's body 

servant. He comes before daylight, and says that his 

master can't get out of bed or eat his breakfast until his 

194 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

appetite is stimulated by reading every word in the 
Examiner." 

"Do you think he profits by its perusal?" 

"Unquestionably. The few sound ideas he ever 
had came from the Examiner." 

This he said with perfect sincerity, for he contended, 
both in the paper and out of it, that every wise and 
useful measure which had been promulgated by the 
administration or by Congress, was borrowed or stolen 
from the Examiner. 

He was proud of his paper. If he sometimes re- 
garded it as "a mill-stone about his neck," he never- 
theless devoted his life to it, and found in it his chief 
happiness. He looked to it as a source of power and 
wealth in the future. Of that future, he was more 
sanguine than any man I ever knew. How well I 
remember the night he said to me, without provocation, 
if I recollect aright: 

"I shall live to eat the goose that eats the grass over 
your grave." 

Perhaps there was something in my appearance which 
called forth the remark, for I must have been worn by 
the enormous amount of work I was then doing. 

I looked up from the table, where I sat writing, and 
said quietly: 

"I don't doubt it; but what makes you say so?" 

"Two reasons; I come of a long-lived race, and I 
have an infallible sign of longevity." 

"What is that?" 

"I never dreamed — my sleep is always sound and 
refreshing." 

195 



JOHN M. 

Little did I then think that before two years were 
ended, I should see him in his cofBn. He was mis- 
taken, however, in saying that he came of a long-Hved 
race. His father was not old when he died, and his 
mother was comparatively young when she came to 
her death — of consumption, if I mistake not. He was 
thinking, probably, of his uncle, Judge Daniel, more 
than his parents. His own health was never robust; 
his constitution was delicate, as a glance at his figure 
showed. His chest was narrow and rather shallow, 
though not sunken, and his hips were broad. The 
organs of digestion and respiration were alike feeble. 
He had had an attack of pneumonia before going to 
Europe, and during his whole life he was a victim of 
dyspepsia, from which he had suffered greatly in youth 
and early manhood. I often warned him against the 
injudicious and frequent use of blue mass, his favorite 
medicine. Great virile strength he had, as was shown 
by his dense beard and the coarse hair on his feminine 
hands, but in muscle, sinew and bone he was deficient. 
He took great care of himself. I was told that when 
he returned to Richmond his person was protected by a 
triple suit of underclothing. Next to his skin he wore 
flannel; over that, buckskin, and over that again, silk. 
This load of clothing he contended was indispensable 
to health in Turin, where the atmospheric changes 
were very violent and sudden. In Richmond he dis- 
pensed with some of this undergear, but probably gave 
up only the buckskin. Among other items which he 
gave a Maryland blockade runner, who waited on him 
one day while I was present, was an order for "one 
196 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

dozen silk shirts of the largest size." This size he 
particularly insisted on, and the inference was that he 
intended to wear them over flannel. ^Vhat availed all 
these precautions when the final summons came? 

Long as this article is, I cannot close it without some 
allusion to John M. Daniel as an editor and as a man. 
He was born an editor. WTiatever may have been his 
abilities as a diplomatist and a politician, whatever 
distinction he might have attained in the forum or in 
the field, his forte lay decidedly in the department of 
letters, and more especially in the conduct of a news- 
paper. He was not a poet, not a historian, a novelist, 
an essayist, or even, if I may coin the word, a maga- 
zinist. He had talent enough to have excelled in any 
or all of these, but his taste led him in another direction. 
It was hoped by everybody that he would on his return 
home write a volume about his residence in Europe. 
Such a book would have been exceedingly interesting 
and valuable. But he was not a book-maker. More- 
over, it is not improbable that he expected to return to 
diplomatic life, and did not wish to embarrass himself 
by reflections upon the manners and customs of the 
people among whom he expected to reside. He could 
not have written about the Italians or any other people 
without dipping his pen in vitriol. The publication 
of a part of one of his letters to his friend. Dr. Peticolas, 
had brought him into trouble with the Italians, and 
made him furious with his associate, Hughes, who 
took charge of the Examiner in his absence. This 
occurred early in his career as a diplomat, and made 
him cautious. He preserved his dispatches with ut- 
197 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

most care, in large handsomely bound volumes; but 
whether with a view to publication or for his own use 
in after years, I am unable to say. 

I remember his telling me one night that he in- 
tended to make a book. 

"I wish you would," said I. 

"Mark you, I did not say write a book, but make 
a book." 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean to make a book with the scissors," he 
replied. 

"How so?" 

"Why, by taking the files of the Examiner from its 
foundation to the present time, and clipping the best 
things from them. I am sure that I could in this way 
make a book, consisting of a number of volumes, which 
would contain more sense, more wit and more humor 
than anything that has been published in this country 
for the last twenty years. Similar publications have 
been made in England in modern times, and long since 
the days of the Spectator and the Rambler, and they 
have succeeded. I believe that the best things which 
have appeared in the Examiner, if put into book form, 
would compare favorably with any English publica- 
tion of the kind, and that the book would command a 
ready sale." 

So far as my personal knowledge goes, this is the 
only book which John M. Daniel ever thought seri- 
ously of making. I agreed with him then, and I can 
but think now, that the present owners of the Examiner 
would do well to carry out his view?. In the impover- 
198 



ished condition of the South, at this precise time, it is 
idle to expect a very large sale of any publication what- 
soever; but the day will come, I trust, when the bound 
volume of selections from the Examiner will have a 
place in every Southern gentleman's library. 

John M. Daniel was emphatically an editor — not a 
newspaper contributor, but an editor and a politician. 
He was enough of the latter to have made a name in 
the cabinet. He was no orator, although he had an 
orator's mouth. I never heard of his making a public 
speech. He must have had a great natural repugnance 
to speaking. Could he have overcome this repugnance, 
he had command enough of language to have ensured 
him considerable distinction in forensic display; but 
his temper was far too hot and quick to admit of suc- 
cess in debate. He knew men, in the light in which a 
politician views them, thoroughly well. His natural 
faculty of weighing measures and of foreseeing their 
effects was much above the common. He had in him 
the elements of a statesman. His historical studies 
and his knowledge of mankind were not in vain. Be- 
fore the first blow was struck, and when both Mr. 
Benjamin and Mr. Seward, speaking the sentiments 
of their respective peoples, were issuing their "ninety 
days notes," he prophesied not only the magnitude, 
but the inhuman and unchristian ferocity of the late 
war. And who, in this sad hour, can forget how, as 
the struggle drew near its close, he strove day after day 
and week after week to revive the flagging spirits, and 
to kindle anew the energy and courage of the Southern 
people, by terrible pictures of the fate which has ever 
199 



attended "oppressed nationalities?" It is true that 
these articles were written by John Mitchell; but they 
were inspired by Daniel. Alas! those prophecies, like 
all others, have been interpreted fully only in their 
completion. 

As a politician, eminence was not his. Had he 
lived, it is as certain as anything human can be, that 
he would have filled an honored niche in the temple of 
political fame; but his celebrity was destined to be 
confined to the domain of journalism. Therein he 
obtained a distinction which has been surpassed by 
none and equalled but by few American journalists. 
His place is by the side of Thomas Ritchie, Hampden 
Pleasants and Joseph Gales. As an editor, he was to 
politicians what the Earl of Warwick was to kings. 

"It is said," he remarked to me one day, "that my 
admiration for Floyd is due to the fact that Floyd 
made me. The truth is, I made Floyd." 

He was accustomed to magnify his office of editor, 
and his exalted opinion of General Floyd was based, 
not upon gratitude, but upon his estimate of the man 
himself. It has been said that the quality which 
women most admire in men is "strength." The as- 
sertion holds equally good of man's admiration for 
man, and is particularly true in regard to John M. 
Daniel. He worshipped strength, and nothing but 
strength of mind and of body. He despised fools and 
weaklings of all sorts. Goodness — the moral qualities 
— he threw entirely out of the account. He did not 
much believe in the existence of these qualities, and 
when they did exist, he regarded them as but evidences 
200 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

of weakness. Floyd was his "man of bronze" — there- 
fore he liked him. Of another and more distinguished 
poHtician he would speak in terms of extreme con- 
tempt. "He snivels — he weeps," he would say, in 
tones of indescribable disgust. Often have I heard 
him expatiate upon Wigfall's magnificent physique and 
his unmistakable natural courage. "It is the genuine 
thing," he would say. "There is no put on there. He 
has got native pluck — the actual article; it is no strain 
on him to exhibit it. The grit is in him, and you 
can't shake him." 

Of Daniel's own courage, I think I can speak safely 
and correctly; and I may as well do so here, although 
I had intended to defer mention of it until I came to 
the discussion of his character as a man. 

He did not have the hard animal bravery of Wigfall; 
it was not in his constitution. His highly wrought 
nervous system was not sufficiently panoplied with 
brawn to ensure it against the agitation arising from 
a sudden shock or the violence of an unexpected attack 
with the fist or club. Nor was he of that tough and 
wiry make which enables some fragile men to meet the 
rudest physical assaults without an outward tremor. 
But he had courage of another sort, and had it in a 
high degree. What is generally called moral courage, 
but is more properly intellectual courage — that is, 
bravery which is founded not upon combativeness, the 
consciousness of muscular strength, or upon great ex- 
citability unrestrained by caution, but upon the clear 
perception of the nature and extent of danger, together 
with the hardihood of great self-esteem and pride of 
201 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

character — he possessed to an extent which is rarely 
seen. To make a reputation, he commenced his edi- 
torial career by attacking personally nearly every man 
of note in Virginia, thereby incurring a responsibility 
in the field and out of it — for it rested with the parties 
assailed to demand satisfaction according to the code 
or to take it at the pistol's mouth in the street, as 
seemed best in their eyes — which few men of the 
strongest nerve would have dared to assume. 

He lived in a land where duels were common; in a 
city where the editor of the Whig had been slain but 
a few years before, and among a people who never 
entertained the first thought of accepting damages at 
law as reparation for a personal affront; hence the 
course of the Examiner during its earlier years was 
attended with a degree of danger which none but a 
truly daring or a foolhardy man would ever have 
encountered. But Daniel was no fool; and although 
he lacked caution and allowed the bitterness of his 
feelings to carry him too far, he was anything but 
reckless. Appreciating fully his danger, he willingly 
risked his life and his reputation in order to secure the 
advantages which lay beyond the point he so coolly 
braved. To carry his point, he accepted cheerfully 
the odium of the community, and, indeed, of the whole 
State in which he lived. For the sake of power and a 
competency, he became an outcast from society. At 
one time he was literally hated or feared by everybody. 
In the whole world there was scarcely a human being 
who really liked him for himself. All this he brought 
upon himself, deliberately and for a purpose. He 
202 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

marked out an arduous course, and he followed that 
course resolutely to the last day of his life, accepting 
all the consequences. Surely, neither a weak nor a 
timid man could have done this. Assaulted suddenly 
in the streets by a powerful man, of known courage, 
who threatened then and there to cut his ears ofiF, it is 
not to be wondered that the fragile man showed some 
agitation; but his intrepid "you shall have your duel" 
in the admirable correspondence with Elmore, and his 
calm bearing on the field in the very presence of death 
(for his adversary was no trifler), proved beyond ques- 
tion that John M. Daniel had that within him which 
men in every age have recognized as genuine courage. 
To return from this digression: He was an editor 
in the best and fullest meaning of the word. He 
could not only write himself, and write well, but he 
could make others write well. The crudest articles, 
as I have shown, if they had but the germ of some- 
thing good in them, could be transformed by him in a 
few moments, with an ease and an art peculiarly his 
own, into powerful leaders. A touch or two of his pen 
gave a new coloring to a contribution and made it his 
own. He had the power of infusing his spirit into 
every part of his paper, and of giving it thereby an 
individuality which made it as attractive as it was 
unique. He had innumerable editorial contributors, 
but they all caught, insensibly and quietly, his spirit, 
his very tone; and there was about the Examiner, 
whenever he was at the head of it, a homogeneity 
which under other managers it never attained. It 
was easy to tell when he left the paper and when he 
203 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

came back to it. His precise articles could not always 
be told, but there was a nameless something about 
the paper, as a whole, which gave indubitable evidence 
of his presence. The very arrangement of the printed 
matter and the allocation of articles betrayed him be- 
hind the scenes. He brought with him, as often as he 
resumed the helm, a magnetic charm which drew to the 
paper the cleverest things which were written by any- 
body. Whoever chanced to do a good thing with the 
pen was anxious for it to appear in the Examiner. 
There it would be read by more people and be better 
appreciated than in any other paper. The credit 
would be Daniel's, but what of that ? The intellectual 
bantling would be sure not to die still-born. It would 
make a noise and be talked about; its unknown 
parent would hear its praises and be secretly proud. 

Many men have written for the Examiner, and 
some have conducted it with ability; but it has never 
been, and it may be fairly reckoned that it never will 
be, edited as it was by John M. Daniel. He had not 
the humor, and he may not have had the wit of some 
of the contributors; nor did he have the financial 
knowledge or the scientific attainments of others who 
wrote for him; but he made a better editor than any 
or all of those combined could have made. The truth 
of this assertion will be understood fully when I call 
the names of some of his contributors. They are as 
follows: Robert W. Hughes, Patrick Henry Aylett, 
William Old, Dr. A. E. Peticolas, Edward A. Pollard, 
L. Q. Washington, Prof. Basil Gildersleeve, John R. 
Thompson and John Mitchell. Some of these gentle- 
204 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

men have had the paper entirely in their charge for 
months at a time, but it is no disparagement to them 
to say that the paper in their hands was never what it 
was in the hands of John M. Daniel. He had in him 
an intensity of bitterness which they did not possess, 
and would not have displayed if they had possessed. 
He had a strength of originality, an art of attracting 
contributions and of shaping them into his own simili- 
tude, and what is most to the point, a painstaking 
attention to the minutiae of the paper, which, combined, 
made him an editor whose equal, in all respects, has 
never been seen in this country. 

He had little, and if his own opinion were taken, not 
a particle of humor. He was too bitter for that. But 
he had the quickest and keenest appreciation of the 
humorous. Dickens was a favorite with him. Nay, 
he had, he must have had, humor of his own. Wit 
he had in a high degree, and of every sort; but he was 
particularly happy in nicknaming and in personalities 
of all kinds. Some of those names showed both wit 
and humor; as when he called the cadets of the Vir- 
ginia Military Institute, on the occasion of their first 
visit to Richmond, "kildees," a title which, as it 
seemed to belittle them, made the cadets very angry, 
but which was, nevertheless, so appropriate and so 
harmless that everybody laughed good-naturedly at it. 
The appellation of "leaden gimlet," which he applied 
to a certain lawyer in Richmond, is an example of 
galling satire, without the least admixture of the milk 
of human kindness. The office of Mr. Benjamin, the 
Secretary of State, contained files of the leading news- 
205 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

papers of the Confederacy; and hence it was called by 
Daniel "the Confederate Reading Room" — a name 
intended to convey his contempt at once for the oflBce 
and the oflScial who occupied it. 

He had a lively fancy, but little or no imagination 
in the higher sense of the term. Certainly he had not 
the creative faculty. I do not know that he ever 
attempted rhyme, much less poetry or dramatic char- 
acterization. His mind was logical, but dry and 
elaborate argumentation was not to his liking. He 
caught readily the salient points of a question, and 
aimed, in writing, to present them forcibly, but not 
with too much brevity. I saw him return to the au- 
thor a number of editorials which I thought excellent, 
and asked him why he did so. "They are well writ- 
ten," said he, "in fact, they are elegantly written; but 
there is no incision in them." 

His reading was various and extensive, his memory 
first-rate. He told me that, during his residence 
abroad, he not only made himself familiar with Italian 
and French literature, but read, in addition, every 
Latin author of celebrity, and many whose names 
were almost wholly unknown. Greek he neglected, 
and he paid little attention to German. History, biog- 
raphy, memoirs, political treatises, novels, poetry, and 
essays of the better class, he literally devoured, and 
retained with wonderful fidelity everything of import- 
ance that he had ever read. He cared little, I think, 
for metaphysics, or for the exact sciences, and discov- 
ered less information in regard to anatomy and phys- 
iology than many men of ordinary capacity and edu- 
206 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

cation. He was not, strictly speaking, a learned man. 
His taste was pure and correct; his love of "English 
undefiled" very great. Yet he was not a slavish pur- 
ist. His peculiar spelling was but a mark of his infi- 
nite detestation of Webster as a New England Yankee. 
His favorite authors were Voltaire and Swift. The 
latter was his model. He often urged me to study 
Swift diligently, in preference to Addison, Dryden, 
Milton, or any other English author, ancient or modern. 
It remains for me to speak of him in his personal 
character, and this I shall do as briefly as I can. He 
who has ever looked unflinchingly into his own heart 
will be slow to bring against another the accusation 
which so many were fond of bringing against John 
M. Daniel — that he was "a bad man." That he was 
essentially and thoroughly "bad," no one who knew 
him intimately will charge. De mortuis nil nisi bonum. 
Upon that principle alone I should exonerate him from 
the charge. But more than that, I saw and heard too 
much to allow me, for an instant, to yield assent to 
every sweeping indictment against the character of the 
dead Virginian. Whilst he was yet extremely poor, 
he went twenty miles to lend a still poorer friend some 
money; and, at the same time, to save himself an ex- 
pense which he could ill afford, walked the whole dis- 
tance between Richmond and Petersburg and back 
again. This does not argue a bad heart. He bore 
his poverty manfully, denied himself and "owed no 
man anything." Such is not the wont of bad men. 
I know it gave him sincere pleasure to compose a 
quarrel, and, when called upon, he exerted himself 
207 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

energetically to accomplish that end. But bad men 
prefer to stir up strife, rather than to allay it. I know 
that he made a trip to Charlottesville for the purpose 
of buying a house advertised for sale at auction, which 
house he intended to rent cheaply to me, in order that 
I might escape the grinding exactions of city landlords. J 
And this he did at my request. Is it the habit of bad " 
men to undertake such journeys in the interest of those 
who have no special claim on them? I know that at 
a time when nearly every property owner in Richmond 
seemed almost conscienceless in their extortions, the 
houses purchased by John M. Daniel, and fitted up by 
him at no trifling expense, were rented to his assistant 
editors on terms most reasonable. Is this the practice 
of bad men? That Daniel was not liberal and open- 
hearted I will admit. But he was not a screw. He 
was just, upright in his dealings, prompt to the minute 
in all his payments. His printers, his writers, all in 
his employ, were better paid than those in any other 
newspaper office in the city. If this be the habit of 
bad men, what pity it is that the world is not full of 
them! 

That he treated his relatives with unkindness, and 
that the hardships he endured in the days of his pov- 
erty were no sufficient excuse for this unkindness, no 
one who has heard both sides of the question will deny. 
But the man was morbid, both in body and in mind. 
One of the evidences of insanity laid down in the 
books is a causeless hatred of the nearest and best rela- 
tives and friends. I do not say or believe that John 
M. Daniel was insane. Nevertheless, his bitterness 
208 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

toward people in general, and toward certain kindred 
in particular, betokened anything but mental sound- 
ness. His body, perhaps, was never entirely free from 
disease. The tubercular disposition, with a tendency 
to development in that part of the system (the diges- 
tive organs) the disorders of which are known to affect 
the mind more powerfully than any others, may ac- 
count for many of those unfortunate peculiarities which 
contradistinguished him from healthier and happier 
men. Had he possessed a florid complexion and a 
robust organism, who believe that his faults would 
have been the same? Temperament is not an ade- 
quate excuse for every failing, but due allowance should 
ever be made for its influence. 

Added to his bodily infirmities, there was a want of 
faith in human nature and its Great Author. Yet he 
was by no means an atheist, but rather a deist. I ques- 
tioned him very gravely one day concerning his belief 
in God. He paused for some time, and then answered 
very cautiously and vaguely. The impression left on 
my mind was that he believed in a Great First Cause, 
but wished for more light. Touching the revelation of 
the New Testament, he gave no opinion. He seemed, 
however, to think that really nothing was known in 
regard to the "bourne whence no traveller returns."* 

* The following incident, recently communicated to me, may 
be relied on as strictly true, and serves still further to illustrate 
Daniel's character: 

Dr. Rawlings said to Walker some weeks before Daniel's 
death: "Walker, Daniel must die. You seem to be able to 
talk to him at all times without offending him, and, if you think 
proper, the next time you find him in a calm frame of mind, you 

209 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

When this subject was broached, neither of us dreamed 
that he was so soon to explore that unknown world, 
which lay dark and unfathomable before him. But a 
few evenings before he had congratulated himself upon 
the position he had gained in the world. 

"I am still young," said he; "not very young, either, 
for I will soon be forty. But I know no young man 
who has better prospects than myself, and few who 
have done so well. I suppose I am worth now nearly 
one hundred thousand dollars in good money. The 
Examiner is very valuable property, and destined to 
be much more so. I expect to live long, and, if I do, 
I shall be rich. When I am rich I shall buy the old 
family estate in Stafford County, and shall add to it all 
the land for miles around. I shall build a house to my 
fancy, and, with my possessions walled in, I shall 
teach these people what they never knew — how to live 
like a gentleman." 

may ask him if he would Hke to converse with a minister of the 
Gospel." Knowing Daniel's dislike to most preachers, Walker 
thought over the matter several days before he could muster 
courage to bring up the subject. One morning when he seemed 
stronger and perfectly free from pain, Walker sat some moments, 
very nervous and almost afraid to allude to the matter; but at 
length he said: "Mr. Daniel, you have always thought a great 
deal of Dr. Hoge; you believe he is a sincere, good man." He 
replied, very promptly, "Well, what of it?" Walker answered, 
'•■ You are very ill, and I thought perhaps you would like to have 
him call on you and talk with you." He looked up, smilingly, 
and said, "Walker, / am no woman! I don't want any one but 
yourself to come into this room except the doctor." He never 
alluded to his being dangerously ill save once, when he said to 
Walker, "Send word to your wife that you will sleep in my 
house to-night. Something may happen before morning, and 
I want you with me." 

210 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

Such, in effect, and almost in words, was the picture 
he drew of his future. It was the first and only time I 
ever knew him to indulge his fancy in building air casdes. 

I may add, as one additional proof that he was not 
an atheist, the fact that he made it a rule to publish in 
the Examiner, on each succeeding New Year's day, a 
poem in honor of the Deity. He did this, not merely 
because he thought it a becoming and good old custom, 
but because it was real gratification to him to do so. 
He bestowed much thought on the selection of this 
New Year's poem, singled it out months beforehand, 
and sometimes consulted his friends to ascertain 
whether there was not some poem of the kind with 
which he was not acquainted. He certainly asked me 
to aid him in making such a selection, and I have no 
reason to believe that he did not consult others also. 

He hated men, but not mankind. To the latter he 
was indifferent. But he despised men more than he 
hated them. It had been his misfortune to view men 
from two inauspicious standpoints — from poverty on 
the one hand, and from power on the other — and in 
each case the picture was distorted by the medium of 
a morbid physical and mental nature. Proud, with 
the pride of an acute and bold intellect, he fancied, in 
his days of penury, that he was contemned and neg- 
lected, when he knew he had that within him Which 
was to be neither neglected nor contemned. After he 
had proved this, after he had become famous, prosper- 
ous and powerful, he despised men, because he fancied 
they envied him his prosperity, feared his power and 
hated himself. "Man pleased him not; no, nor 
211 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

woman either," because his sad experience had taught 
him to suspect the purity of all motives. A little 
genuine humility, a moderate degree of success, 
achieved in some other way than by attacking and 
overpowering antagonists, would have made him a 
happier, wiser, and better man. He dreaded power 
in others, because, as he confessed to me, he knew its 
baneful effects upon himself. He had no faith in men, 
because he knew how terrible would be the conse- 
quences if no obstacle stood between men and the 
accomplishments of their secret desires. He startled 
me one day by saying: "How long do you think you 
would live, if your enemies had their way with you ? 
Perhaps you think you have no enemies who hate you 
enough to kill you. You are greatly mistaken. Every 
man has his enemies. I have them by the thousand, 
and you have them too, though not so numerous as 
mine. Neither your enemies nor mine would run the 
risk of murdering us in open day. But suppose they 
could kill us by simply wishing it? I should drop 
dead in my tracks before your eyes, and you, quiet 
and unknown as you are, would fall a corpse in Main 
Street before you reached home." 

He owned that this horrible thought had been put 
into his mind by some writer whom he had that day 
been reading. But it was precisely such ideas that 
fastened themselves in his memory. He brooded over 
them until they became a part of his very being. No 
wonder he was morbid! 

Here I must stop, for I have told all, or nearly all I 
know about this remarkable man. The narrative has 
212 



JOHN M. DANIEL'S LATCH-KEY 

spun out under my hand to a length very much greater 
than I intended when I began to write. But I have 
wilhngly allowed myfelf to go on, knowing as I do that 
every word about John M. Daniel will be read with 
interest in every Southern State. It is to be hoped 
that at some day those who were his intimate friends 
will do perfectly what I have done most imperfectly, 
for lack of knowledge on the one hand, and because of 
countless interruptions on the other. Written piece- 
meal, this sketch claims no other merit than a faithful 
account of my acquaintance with its subject, and an 
estimate, which I deem to be just, of his character. I 
trust it will be viewed in this light, and that it may not 
provoke one harsh criticism. If Messrs. P. H. Aylett 
and T. H. Wynne, or Doctors Rawlings and Petticolas, 
could be induced to attempt what I have undertaken, 
then the Southern public would have what so many 
desire to see, a full-length portraiture of one of the 
most gifted and brilliant men ever born on Southern 
soil. 

A few words about his death, and I have done. 
Late in January, 1865, he was attacked the second 
time with pneumonia. Treated promptly by skilful 
physicians, his disease abated; he rallied, and was 
able to sit up and attend somewhat to his duties. His 
recovery was deemed certain. But, as the event 
proved, tubercles were developed both in the lungs and 
in the mesenteric glands. The patient gradually grew 
worse, and was at length compelled to return to his 
bed. The slow weeks of winter wore themselves away. 
How they passed, I cannot tell, for, although I made 
213 



JOHN M. DANIEL'S LATCH-KEY 

frequent calls at the house on Broad Street, I was 
always refused admittance. The latch-key remained 
unused in my pocket. Only his physicians and most 
intimate friends were admitted to the sick man's 
chamber. On one occasion, as I was told by a Ken- 
tucky member of the Confederate Congress, he sent 
for the Hon. R. M. T. Hunter, and one or two other 
prominent politicians, and told them his candid opinion 
— that the Cause was hopeless, and that the only course 
left to us was "reconstruction on the best terms we 
could make." 

So long as his strength permitted him to take an 
interest in any earthly thing, he had the welfare of the 
Southern people at heart, and his latest effort seems 
to have been to secure by negotiation what he was 
persuaded arms could not achieve. Those who out- 
lived him can decide for themselves whether the con- 
queror would have kept the faith which might have 
been plighted at Fortress Monroe better than that 
which was so solemnly pledged at Appomattox Court 
House. 

As spring approached, his symptoms became alarm- 
ing. Ere long, it was whispered on the streets that his 
situation was critical. Relatives and friends proffered 
every assistance. They were politely but firmly told 
that assistance was not needed. He was not a man to 
be "sat up with." His only attendant was a female 
servant. Once or twice, perhaps oftener, he requested 
his faithful manager, Walker, to sleep in an adjoining 
room; but Walker was hardly warm in his bed before 
he was aroused by a message to the effect that Mr. 
214 



JOHN M. Daniel's latch-key 

Daniel wished to see him. Hurrying on his clothes, 
he would go at once to the dying man's bed, where, in 
a feeble voice, this strange announcement would be 
made to him: 

"Walker, you must really pardon me, but the truth 
is, that the very fact of your being in the house makes 
me so nervous that I cannot rest. Please go home." 

Home the manager of the Examiner would go, 
sometimes long after midnight, leaving the sufferer to 
his own thoughts. What those were, no man will ever 
tell, for none ever knew. He must have known that 
his days were numbered, for when he received a bou- 
quet of the earliest spring flowers, sent him by the 
daughter of his friend, Mr. Wynne, he took it in his 
wasted hand, returned his thanks for the gift, and then 
laid it aside, murmuring "too late now; too late!" 

The editorial conduct of the Examiner had been in 
the exclusive charge of John Mitchell for many weeks. 
Daniel no longer concerned himself about it. His will 
was made; he was ready to depart. His physicians 
knew he could not live, but they expected him to linger 
ten days or a fortnight longer. Plied with stimulants, 
he might bear up yet a good while. But the last hour 
was at hand. The exact circumstances of his death, 
as told to me, are these. On making his usual morning 
call, Dr. Rawlings found his friend's pulse sinking 
rapidly. No stimulant being at hand, the supply in 
the house having been exhausted, he dispatched a 
servant in all haste to get a bottle of French brandy. 
It was quickly brought. When it came, he proceeded 
forthwith to make a strong toddy. The patient was 
215 



JOHN M. DANIEL S LATCH-KEY 

then lying close to the outer edge of the bed. Dr. 
Rawlings stood some distance off, near the window, 
stirring the toddy. Suddenly his attention was aroused 
by a noise behind him. Looking quickly in that direc- 
tion, he saw that the patient had, by a strong effort, 
turned himself over and lay on his back in the middle 
of the bed, with his eyes closed and his arms folded on 
his breast. Thinking that he was praying, he would 
not disturb him, but continued to stir the toddy a few 
minutes longer, so as to give him time to finish his 
prayer. A sufficient time having elapsed and the need 
of a stimulant being urgent, the doctor went to the 
bedside and leaned over. 

John M. Daniel was not in this world! 



216 



VIII 
THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

[The following sketch was written and published some time in 
the fifties, when there may have been more to excuse its extrava- 
gancies than now. The satire amused the public, and no por- 
tion of it more than the gentlemen who were the object of it.] 

THE Virginia Editor is a young, unmarried, intem- 
perate, pugnacious, gambling gentleman. Be- 
tween drink and dueling-pistols he is generally escorted 
to a premature grave. If he so far withstands the 
ravages of brandy and gunpowder as to reach the 
period of gray hairs and cautiousness, he is deposed to 
make room for a youth who hates his life with an utter 
hatred, and who can't keep drunk more than a week 
at a time. 

Deposed, he becomes a literary ostrich, and may be 
seen, with swollen red nose and diminished, calfless 
shanks, migrating from court-house to court-house, 
laying a newspaper egg, which he leaves to be hatched 
into life and permanence by the pecuniary warmth of 
the party to whom he sells out at a small advance. Or 
he gets the lofty position of clerk in Washington. 
Should he, by rare good luck and the miraculous inter- 
position of Providence, have saved any money, he 
buys a property in the country, retires to it, debauches 
217 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

himself with miscellaneous literature, lounges much 
and does a great deal of nothing at all. Should he get 
married, he sinks into an obscure and decent citizen, 
and looks back upon his early career as a horrid dream. 

Previous to his death, the Virginia editor makes the 
most of the short time allotted to him on earth by liv- 
ing at a suicidal velocity. To test the strength of his 
constitution, by subjecting it to the influence of the 
most destructive habits and agencies, appears to be 
his sole pleasure and aim. He is determined not to 
live longer than he can possibly help. A quiet death 
at a ripe old age he regards as a disgrace. 

His first waking moments in the morning are satu- 
rated with a number of powerful cocktails, to cure a 
headache, "brought over," as an accountant would 
say, from the previous midnight. Cocktailed past the 
point of nervousness and remorse, he dresses himself 
and wends his way to a barber shop to get shaved, if 
he shaves at all. Not unfrequently he has himself 
shaved in bed. Breakfast succeeds, and then, with a 
cigar in his mouth, he enters his sanctum and goes to 
w^ork; which work consists in hunting for insults in 
his exchanges, and in laying the foundation, by means 
of a scathing article, of a future duel. While em- 
ployed upon his leading article he suffers no interrup- 
tion, except from the gentleman who brings a note 
from another gentleman, whom he (the editor) grossly 
insulted at an oyster supper the night before. Having 
no earthly recollection of any such occurrence, the 
editor feels no hesitation (unless he happens to be un- 
usually bilious, or has no "affair" upon his hands), 
218 



THE VIKGINIA EDITOR 

in saying that he "fully and frankly withdraws any 
and every expression reflecting upon the character of 
the gentleman, as a gentleman and a man of honor." 

His editorial labors vary from five minutes to two 
hours and a half in duration. If he feels very badly 
he won't WTite at all, but goes armed with a stick to a 
neighboring law office, and threatens the occupant with 
a caning unless he has a spicy article in the composi- 
tor's hands by such an hour. The unhappy barrister 
complies, and spices the editor into a scrape, for which 
the editor is unaffectedly thankful, swearing he would 
die without excitement. 

Before leaving his sanctum he answers a couple of 
letters which arrived by the last mail. He engages to 

meet "the gallant Democracy of district," and to 

address them on "August court-day." He assures a 
"constant reader" that "the glorious cause is prosper- 
ing, the skies brightening"; and suggests, as the best 
means of putting the issue of the canvass — "the most 
momentous canvass that ever occurred in the history 
of the Republic" — beyond a doubt, that the "constant 
reader" shall send in ten new subscribers to the Keepa 
Pitchinin. He then huddles a shirt, a case of dueling 
pistols, and a bottle of "Otard" into a small trunk, 
and goes to the telegraph oflSce to notify a brother 
editor that he will be in Washington to-morrow night, 
waiting for him at the National Hotel. His mind be- 
ing thus relieved of business, he has nothing to do but 
wander off to his hotel, to look at the register and see 
if anybody has come. Meets there another editor — a 
red-headed provincial fresh from the mountains, . and 
219 



THE VIEGINIA EDITOR 

already heavily laden with "rifle whiskey" — with whom 
he proceeds, without delay, to drink juleps and talk 
politics until dinner-time. 

After dinner he borrows twice as much money as 
will take him to Washington and back, reserving the 
surplus to bet that night at the faro-bank. 

In his personal appearance, the Virginia editor vi- 
brates between positive gentility and absolute shab- 
biness, and this irrespective of his condition as to 
"funds." At times he is smooth and clean of face, 
immaculate in shirt, perfect of boot and hat; at others 
he is great in beard and dirt, resembling an uncleansed 
pressman, or a pirate who has cruised for years upon 
an ocean of ink. He rarely buys clothes until he is in 
immediate need of them; and, inasmuch as he lives 
all over the State, is quite as apt to have on somebody 
else's clothes as his own. He despises a fashionable, 
dandified man as he does a man who drinks weak 
drinks. He vindicates his Democracy, even in his 
liquor; believes in good old brandy or whiskey, calls 
them "strict construction drinks," while malt liquors 
he stigmatizes as "compromise drinks," and will have 
nothing to do with them, except to "taper ofif" on. 

There is nothing in his form or features to distin- 
guish him from other men. A physiognomist might, 
perhaps, detect in his face a bloody good-nature — an 
amiability easily kindled into anger — as if the fierce 
animal instincts of the man were but imperfectly sub- 
dued by the pressure of social refinements. 

His negligence in dress is not greater than his care- 
lessness with regard to another comfort which the ma- 
220 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

jority of mankind deem essential to happiness. He 
will live upon the best of food, will drink the best 
liquors, and smoke the finest cigars, but is utterly 
indifferent as to where or how he sleeps, provided he 
has a bed-fellow; for he is greatly social, and cannot 
bear ever to be alone. No respectable young man 
living in the same city is secure against an invasion of 
the editor at the most inopportune hours of the night. 
How many sweet dreams have been rudely broken by 
his assaults upon the front-door, or his noisy escalade 
of the back-window, it would be impossible to tell. 

He has a room of his own, originally furnished with 
some taste and care, but has a mortal antipathy to 
sleeping in it. Nor is this aversion to be wondered 
at. Through a puddle of newspapers, congressional 
speeches, tobacco juice, cigar stumps, broken spit- 
boxes, and pipestems, he wades to a bed whose sheets 
bade adieu to the washerwoman at a period too re- 
mote to be recalled, and whose counterpane secretes 
its primitive tints under a sweet and greasy scum of 
spermaceti and spilled brandy toddies. A candle- 
stand is drawn conveniently near the yellow pillow, and 
on it lie, disorderly, a candle burned to the socket, a 
fragmentary volume of Byron, a plug of tobacco, a cork 
(fellow to others on the floor), an inkstand without 
any ink in it, and a foolscap scrap of unfinished edi- 
torial. Upon the window-sill, near the foot of the bed, 
stands marshaled a platoon of various-sized bottles, 
from the grenadier champagne to the squatty porter 
and the slab-sided tickler. In the litUe wardrobe are 
no clothes, except a skeleton waistcoat gibbeted upon 
221 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

a broken hook, but a number of empty cigar-boxes, a 
bowie-knife and a revolver. In the waistcoat pocket 
may be found a free railroad ticket, which ticket he 
never presents, for the conductors are much better ac- 
quainted with him than with the schedule. The odor 
of this apartment is not inviting. The door is always 
open, night and day, and it is the common dormitory 
of all belated roysterers. Any one may sleep here 
who chooses. 

Notwithstanding his habits, the editor obtains a pop- 
ularity wholly disproportioned, one would say, to his 
merits. That he should achieve notoriety is no matter 
of surprise, when every number of every paper issued 
in the State contains the name of Derringer Thunder- 
gust, or William Jeems Rawhead, as principal, second, 
or adjustant of some personal diflficulty; but notoriety 
is one thing and popularity another and very different 
thing. 

Habits which would outlaw any other man enable 
him to ride rough-shod over the inviolable law of cus- 
tom. Conduct which would damn a man in business 
endears him to men in whose creed "strict business 
habits" rank next to, if they do not take precedence 
of, godliness. Grave men — the slaves of routine and 
propriety — appear to take the same delight in witness- 
ing his unbridled eccentricities that inspired the poet 
Job when contemplating the gambols of the wild ass. 
There is an airy bravado in his outrages, a gay candor 
and naturalness in his excesses, which extract all their 
sting. As soon quarrel with the habits of a strange 
bird as with those of a being who is not a man, but an 
900 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

editor, and to whom no gauge of human morals is in 
any particular applicable. 

His abhorrence of the vice of solitary drinking has 
a good deal to do with this popularity. Scarcely a 
respectable citizen can be found in the commonwealth 
with whom he has not, at some time or other, hob- 
nobbed in a friendly manner. Rather than drink alone 
he will drink with a negro, provided the negro is at all 
genteel, and has a gentleman for his master. His 
Ethiopian popularity is immense. It could hardly be 
otherwise when, from the White Sulphur Springs to the 
City of Norfolk, he has repeatedly and extravagantly 
feed everything answering to the name of "waiter." 

The Virginia editor is not a pious, nor, strictly speak- 
ing, a gallant man. Women, children, and preachers 
he classes under the common head of "non-combat- 
ants," and views them pretty much in the light in 
which he regards flies — as species of not very harmful, 
somewhat abundant insects, perhaps useful, but whose 
uses are not yet well understood. Still, he makes it a 
point of honor to place implicit faith in the truth of 
the Christian religion and the virtue of women; and 
while he regards the softer sex as, at best, beautiful 
toys, they are glass toys, and he treads respectfully and 
gingerly among the frail vessels. He clings with sec- 
tarian tenacity to the belief in future rewards and pun- 
ishments; he is too brave and resentful a man to think 
otherwise. A disbelief in hell he denounces as the 
"poltroonery of infidelity," nor can any casuistry con- 
vince him that a man is not as responsible for his faith 
as he is for his actions. 

223 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

He loves to talk, and his great theme, after politics, 
is himself. In himself he has the most unbounded 
confidence — a confidence which, in the most trying 
emergencies, scarcely ever deserts him. Through diffi- 
culties that would appal and crush ordinary men, he 
moves with the smiling abandon of a knight-errant 
pricking onward to meet a dragon, gorgon, or chimera 
dire. Only in moments of extreme nervous depression 
will he admit himself not competent to the discharge 
of the most arduous and varied duties of life, and espe- 
cially of those duties for which he is evidently unfitted. 
He looks upon himself as pre-eminently a man of busi- 
ness — a practical man. Rothschild was not his equal 
in financiering ability; Napoleon nor Hampden could 
have wearied him in work; Halifax was not his superior 
in political sagacity. Name any man who has suc- 
ceeded or failed in any undertaking, he will instantly 
unfold to you the secret of his success, or the over- 
sight which led to his downfall. 

"But for cards and liquor," himself would have 
excelled any man of his acquaintance; as it is, see 
how well he gets along in the world. In truth, his 
mind is strictly of the 7iil admirari order; he wor- 
ships no man; and his regard for himself is only a 
reluctant indulgence accorded not to what he is, but 
to what he ought to be, and would be, "but for cards 
and liquor." 

For this remarkable self-confidence he is indebted 

partly to a nature eminently high-spirited, and partly 

to his position. Like the driver of a locomotive, he 

wields a power infinitely greater than his own. He 

224 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

handles the lever that unlooses the throttle-valve of 
the mightiest engine on earth, and it is but natural 
that he should confound derived with individual 
power. Disconnect him from his engine, let him con- 
duct a business, other than his own, upon the same 
loose principles, he would soon discover his error. 
But then he would lose one of his most delightful 
traits. 

The Virginia editor is not a profoundly learned man; 
he is not even a smatterer, in the sense, at least, in 
which that equivocal compliment was paid to Milton. 
His specialty is politics; and his tastes not less than his 
occupation conspire to prevent his acquiring any other 
knowledge. Of Latin he remembers a few terms, such 
as ex fost facto and ex parte, which he picked up 
while drifting, for a few weeks, through a law office. 
Of Greek he retains nearly the whole alphabet, being 
only a little uncertain as to the relative shapes of Zeta 
and Xi, and confusing Phi with Psi. His stock of 
poetry consists of a few scraps of Hudibras, Byron, and 
Peter Pindar; he has, besides, a professional pride and 
tenderness for the quatrain commencing: 

" Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again!" 

It would be impossible to restrain him from quoting 
this occasionally, and, if it were possible, it would be 
cruel. 

His historical information does not extend quite to 

the times of the Achaean League and the Amphictyonic 

Council, but dates rather from the Resolutions of '98. 

With the workings of the American government, from 

225 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

its inception down to the present time; with the char- 
acter, and, to an extent, with the writings of the great 
men who took prominent part in its formation; with 
the poHcy of the party leaders; with the pohticians, 
great and small, of his own times, and with their tac- 
tics, he is intimately familiar. In fact, his attainments 
may be summed up in the word "politics"; for while 
he does not underrate those who understand and take 
an interest in Belles Lettres and the Arts and Sciences, 
he frankly confesses that he knows and cares nothing 
about them himself. So fitted is he for partisan jour- 
nalism, and so wedded to it, that it is to be hoped the 
divine economy has set apart some waste democratic 
star, some uncleared portion of the celestial public 
domain, some half-settled nebulous Kansas as a news- 
paper heaven for him and his fellows. Elsewhere no 
conceivable use could be found for them. 

His style in writing varies from the pl^nest Anglo- 
Saxon to the most gorgeous highfalutin. In general, 
however, he makes use of ordinary English, and cares 
little or nothing about nicety and finish. He is better 
at repartee than at argument, but prefers hard talk to 
the most polished wit. His humor is peculiar, and 
considerably wider than it is subUe. 

It has been said by some that the Virginia editor is 
chosen rather for the stoutness of his heart than for 
the brilliancy of his intellect, and, to be honest, there 
is some truth in the allegation. A newspaper, to be 
successful in the Old Dominion, must not be defective 
in what they call chivalry; and a long-established 
paper, having the 'prestige of high-toned valor, would 
226 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

hardly employ a ready-writing craven in preference to 
a brave gentleman less facile with the pen. But the 
requirements of the public in this regard, and the 
usages of the papers, have been a thought exagger- 
ated. 

It is not true, for example, that the man-of-all-work, 
the "Csesar" of the office, who is employed to sweep 
out the old papers and trash in the morning, receives 
an additional compensation for sweeping in the dead 
editors lying about the door, who have been killed at 
various places during the night and brought there, as 
to a Morgue, for recognition and distribution. Neither 
is it true that a paper, in order to keep up its circula- 
tion, must have at least one editor killed a day, and 
that papers having secured a good editor, one whom 
they are unwilling to lose, are in the habit of imposing 
upon the public by buying up worthless wretches to 
assassinate in place of him. Equally unfounded is the 
report that papers impoverished and doing a small 
business are forced to practice the contemptible fraud 
of substituting wooden dummies, manikins, or lay 
figures in place of bona fide corpses. These reports 
have reference, doubtless, to States farther south than 
Virginia. 

A propensity for gaming is a part of the editor's 
constitution — an hereditary taint, for which he is no 
more responsible than for the age of his grandfather, 
and which he could as easily get rid of as remove the 
shape of his legs. The aflBiction being eminently gen- 
teel, he not only bears up under it with manly forti- 
tude, but cherishes it with much regard. He is not 
227 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

much of a hand at "short cards." His delight is to be 
seated over against a grim, imperturbable faro-dealer — 
to have bets of "red checks" all over the table — half 
a dozen "piddlers" of "white chips" to be leaning 
over his shoulder and admiring his nerve — a negro to 
be patiently awaiting the end of the deal to hand him 
a brandy toddy on a silver waiter — for the game to be 
stoutly contested, and himself to "come out right 
smartly winner." He has no great faith in "cases," 
but believes in betting on three cards at a time, and 
has a special hankering for "the pot." 

After all, and in spite of his many faults, the Vir- 
ginia editor is a gentleman. He comes of a good 
stock, and, however wild he may be, never disgraces 
it by a low or mean action. His vices are not those of 
a groveling spirit. If his temper is hot, it is not im- 
placable; if his resentment is quick, it never seeks an 
underhanded revenge. If he' prefers a clean bullet- 
hole to a fisticufBsh bruising or mangling with a blud- 
geon, that is his own concern. If he is a sturdy parti- 
san, he is above the venality and the trimming which 
disgrace the journalism of States nearer the pole than 
his own. If he drinks too much, it is because the 
liquor he uses is of the best quality. If he gambles, it 
is because he can't help it. If he lives something be- 
yond his income, he is doing no more than all enlight- 
ened nations and the majority of great men have done 
and continue to do. His tastes are lavish. An im- 
perial gallon cannot be contained in a quart pot. And 
what political fabric was ever reared or maintained in 
its integrity without the aid of an occasional loan ? If 
228 



THE VIRGINIA EDITOR 

he is not a very good citizen, it is because he wants to 
be a better editor. 

Finally, half an ounce of lead is "honorably and 
satisfactorily adjusted" in his heart or brain, and the 
Virginia editor dies, to the great joy of himself and 
to the intense grief of his party — the faro-dealers, the 
barkeepers, and of everybody who is entitled to an 
unexpected fifty cents simply because he is a negro 
and can run an errand. The no longer belligerent 
remains are attended to the tomb by an immense con- 
course of citizens of all parties, and the epitaph, stale 
but true, is, that "the community could have better 
spared a better man." 



229 



IX 
CANAL REMINISCENCES 

RECOLLECTIONS OF TRAVEL IN THE OLD DAYS ON THE 
JAMES RIVER AND KANAWHA CANAL 

A MONG my earliest recollections is a trip from 
•^ ^ Cumberland County to Lynchburg, in 1835, or 
thereabouts. As the stage approached Glover's tavern 
in Appomattox County, sounds as of a cannonade 
aroused my childish curiosity to a high pitch. I had 
been reading Parley's History of America, and this 
must be the noise of actual battle. Yes; the war 
against the hateful Britishers must have broken out 
again. Would the stage carry us within range of the 
cannon balls ? Yes, and presently the red-coats would 
come swarming out of the woods. And — and — Gen- 
eral Washington was dead; I was certain of that; what 
would become of us? I was terribly excited, but 
afraid to ask questions. Perhaps I was scared. Would 
they kill an unarmed boy, sitting peacably in a stage 
coach? Of course they would; Britishers will do 
anything! Then they will have to shoot a couple of 
men first — and I squeezed still closer between them. 

My relief and my disappointment were equally 
great, when a casual remark unfolded the fact that the 
230 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

noise which so excited me was only the "blasting of 
rock on the Jeems and Kanawha Canell." What was 
"blasting of rock?" 

What was a "canell?" and, above all, what manner 
of thing was a "Jeems and Kanawha Canell?" Was 
it alive? 

I think it was; more alive than it has ever been 
since, except for the first few years after it was opened. 

Those were the "good old days" of batteaux — 
picturesque craft that charmed my young eyes more 
than all the gondolas of Venice would do now. True, 
they consumed a week in getting from Lynchburg to 
Richmond, and ten days in returning against the 
stream, but what of that? Time was abundant in 
those days. It was made for slaves, and we had the 
slaves. A batteau on the water was more than a 
match for the best four or six horse bell team that 
ever rolled over the red clay of Bedford, brindle dog 
and tar-bucket included. 

Fleets of these batteaux used to be moored on the 
river bank near where the depot of the Virginia and 
Tennessee Railroad now stands; and many years after 
the "Jeems and Kanawha" was finished, one of them 
used to haunt the mouth of Blackwater Creek above 
the toll-bridge, a relic of departed glory. For if ever 
man gloried in his calling — the negro batteauman was 
that man. His was a hardy calling, demanding skill, 
courage and strength in a high degree. I can see him 
now striding the plank that ran along the gunwale to 
afford him footing, his long iron-shod pole trailing in 
the water behind him. Now he turns, and after one or 
231 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

two ineffectual efforts to get his pole fixed in the rocky 
bottom of the river, secures his purchase, adjusts the 
upper part of the pole to the pad at his shoulder, bends 
to his task, and the long, but not ungraceful bark 
mounts the rapids like a seabird breasting the storm. 
His companion on the other side plies the pole with 
equal ardor, and between the two the boat bravely 
surmounts every obstacle, be it rocks, rapids, quick- 
sands, hammocks, what not. A third negro at the 
stern held the mighty oar that served as a rudder. A 
stalwart, jolly, courageous set they were, plying the 
pole all day, hauling in to shore at night under the 
friendly shade of a mighty sycamore, -to rest, to eat, to 
play the banjo, and to snatch a few hours of profound, 
blissful sleep. 

The up-cargo, consisting of sacks of salt, bags of 
coffee, barrels of sugar, molasses and whiskey, af- 
forded good pickings. These sturdy fellows lived well, 
I promise you, and if they stole a little, why, what was 
their petty thieving compared to the enormous pillage 
of the modern sugar refiner and the crooked-whiskey 
distiller? They lived well. Their cook's galley was 
a little dirt thrown between the ribs of the boat at the 
stern, with an awning on occasion to keep off the rain, 
and what they didn't eat wasn't worth eating. Fish 
of the very best, both salt and fresh, chickens, eggs, 
milk and the invincible, never-satisfying ash-cake and 
fried bacon. I see the frying-pan, I smell the meat, 
the fish, the Rio coffee! — I want the batteau back 
again, aye! and the brave, light-hearted slave to boot. 
What did he know about the State debt? There was 
232 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

no State debt to speak of. Greenbacks? Bless, you! 
the Farmers Bank of Virginia was living and breathing, 
and its money was good enough for a king. Re- 
adjustment, funding bill, tax-receivable coupons — 
where were all these worries then ? I think if we had 
known they were coming, we would have stuck to the 
batteaux and never dammed the river. Why, shad 
used to run to Lynchburg! The world was merry, 
buttermilk was abundant; Lynchburg a lad, Rich- 
mond a mere youth, and the great " Jeems and Kana- 
wha canell" was going to — oh! it was going to do 
everything. 

This was forty years ago and more, mark you. 

In 1838, I made my first trip to Richmond. What 
visions of grandeur filled my youthful imagination! 
That eventually I should get to be a man seemed 
probable, but that I should ever be big enough to live, 
actually live, in the vast metropolis, was beyond my 
dreams. For I believed fully that men were propor- 
tioned to the size of the cities they lived in. I had seen 
a man named Hatcher from Cartersville, who was near 
about the size of the average man in Lynchburg, but 
as I had never seen Cartersville, I concluded, nat- 
urally enough, that Cartersville must be equal in pop- 
ulation. Which may be the fact, for I have never yet 
seen Cartersville, though I have been to Warminster, 
and once came near passing through Bent-Creek. 

I went by stage. 

It took two days to make the trip, yet no one com- 
plained, although there were many Methodist min- 
isters aboard. Bro. Lafferty had not been born. I 
233 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

thought it simply glorious. There was an unnatural 
preponderance of preacher to boy — nine of preacher to 
one of boy. That boy did not take a leading part in 
the conversation. He looked out of the window, and 
thought much about Richmond. And what a wonder- 
ful world it was! So many trees, such nice rocks, and 
pretty ruts in the red clay; such glorious taverns, and 
men with red noses; such splendid horses, a fresh 
team every ten miles, and an elegant smell of leather, 
proceeding from the coach, prevailing everywhere as 
we bowled merrily along. And then the stage horn. 
Let me not speak of it, lest Thomas and his orchestra 
hang their heads for very shame. I wish somebody 
would tell me where we stopped the first night, for I 
have quite forgotten. Anyhow, it was on the left-hand 
side coming down, and I rather think on the brow of a 
little hill. I know we got up mighty soon the next 
morning. 

We drew up at the Eagle Hotel in Richmond. 
Here again words, and time too, fail me. All the 
cities on earth packed into one wouldn't look as big 
and fine to me now as Main Street did then. If 
things shrink so in the brief space of a lifetime, what 
would be the general appearance, say of Petersburg, 
if one should live a million or so of years ? This is an 
interesting question, which you may discuss with your- 
self, dear reader. 

Going northward, I remained a year or two, and on 

my return the " canell " was finished. I had seen bigger 

places than Richmond, but had yet to have my first 

experience of canal travelling. The packet-landing at 

234 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

the foot of Eighth Street presented a scene of great 
activity. Passengers on foot and in vehicles continued 
to arrive up to the moment of starting. I took a peep 
at the cabin, wondering much how all the passengers 
were to be accommodated for the night, saw how 
nicely the baggage was stored away on deck, admired 
the smart waiters, and picked up a deal of information 
generally. I became acquainted with the names of 
Edmond & Davenport in Richmond, and Boyd, 
Edmond & Davenport in Lynchburg, the owners of 
the packet-line, and thought to myself, "What im- 
mensely rich men they must be! Why, these boats 
cost ten times as much as a stage-coach, and I am told 
they have them by the dozen." 

At last we were off, slowly pushed along under the 
bridge on Seventh Street; then the horses were hitched; 
then slowly along till we passed the crowd of boats 
near the city, until at length, with a lively jerk as the 
horses fell into a trot, away we went, the cut-water 
throwing up the spray as we rounded the Penitentiary 
hill, and the passengers lingering on deck to get a last 
look at the fair City of Richmond, lighted by the pale 
rays of the setting sun. 

As the shadows deepened, everybody went below. 
There was always a crowd in those days, but it was a 
crowd for the most part of our best people, and no one 
minded it. I was little, and it took little room to ac- 
commodate me. Everything seemed as cozy and com- 
fortable as heart could wish. I brought to the table — 
an excellent one it was — a school-boy's appetite, sharp- 
ened by travel, and thought it was "just splendid." 
235 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

Supper over, the men went on deck to smoke, while 
the ladies busied themselves with draughts or back- 
gammon, with conversation or with books. But not 
for long. The curtains which separated the female 
from the male department were soon drawn, in order 
that the steward and his aids might make ready the 
berths. These were three deep, "lower," "middle," 
and "upper", and great was the desire on the part of 
the men not to be consigned to the "upper," Being 
light as cork, I rose naturally to the top, clambering 
thither by the leathern straps with the agility of a mon- 
key, and enjoying as best I might the trampling over- 
head whenever we approached a lock. I didn't mind 
this much, but when the fellow who had snubbed the 
boat jumped down about four feet, right on my head as 
it were, it was pretty severe. Still I slept the sleep of 
youth. We all went to bed early. A few lingered, 
talking in low tones; the way-passengers, in case there 
was a crowd, were dumped upon mattresses, placed 
on the dining-tables. 

The lamp shed a dim light over the sleepers, and all 
went well till some one — and there always was some 
one — began to snore. Sii-a-a-aw — aw-aw-poof! They 
would turn uneasily and try to compose themselves to 

slumber again. No use. Sn-a-a-aw — poof! "D 

that fellow! Chunk him in the ribs, somebody, and 
make him turn over. Is this thing to go on forever? 
Gentlemen, are you going to stand this all night? If 
you are, I am not. I am going to get up and dress. 
Who is he, anyhow? No gentleman would or could 
snore in that way!" 

236 



CANAL KEMINISCENCES 

After awhile silence would be restored, and all would 
drop off to sleep again, except the little fellow in the 
upper berth, who, lying there, would listen to the 
trahn-ahn-ahn-ahn of the packet-horn, as we drew 
nigh the locks. How mournfully it sounded in the 
night! what a doleful thing it is at best, and how dif- 
ferent from the stage-horn, with its cheery, ringing 
notes! The difference in the horns marks the differ- 
ence in the two eras of travel; not that the canal period 
is doleful — I would not say that, but it is less bright 
than the period of the stage-coach. 

To this day you have only to say, within my hearing, 
trahn-ahji-ahn, to bring back the canal epoch. I can 
see the whole thing down to the snubbing-post, with 
its deep grooves which the heavy rope had worn. In- 
deed, I think I could snub a boat myself, with very 
little practice, if the man on deck would say "hup!" 
to the horses at the proper time. 

We turned out early in the morning, and had pre- 
cious little room for dressing. But that was no hard- 
ship to me, who had just emerged from a big boarding- 
school dormitory. Still, I must say, being now a grown 
and oldish man, that I would not like to live and sleep 
and dress for twenty or thirty years in the cabin of a 
canal-packet. The ceremony of ablution was per- 
formed in a primitive fashion. There were the tin 
basins, the big tin dipper with the long wooden handle. 
I feel it vibrating in the water now, and the water a 
little muddy generally; and there were the towels, a 
big one on a roller, and the little ones in a pile, and all 
of them wet. These were discomforts, it is true, but, 
237 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

pshaw! one good, big, long, deep draught of pure, 
fresh morning air — one ghmpse of the roseate flush 
above the wooded hills of the James, one look at the 
dew besprent bushes and vines along the canal bank 
— one sweet caress of dear mother nature in her morn- 
ing robes, made ample compensation for them all. 
Breakfast was soon served, and all the more enjoyed 
in consequence of an hour's fasting on deck; the sun 
came out in all his splendor; the day was fairly set in, 
and with it there was abundant leisure to enjoy the 
scenery, that grew more and more captivating as we 
rose, lock after lock, into the rock-bound eminences of 
the upper James. This scenery I will not attempt to 
describe, for time has sadly dimmed it in my recollec- 
tion. The wealth of the lowlands, and the upland 
beauty must be seen as I have seen them, in the day 
of their prime, to be enjoyed. 

The perfect cultivation, the abundance, the elegance, 
the ducal splendor, one might almost say, of the great 
estates that lay along the canal in the old days have 
passed away in a great measure. Here were gentle- 
men, not merely refined and educated, fitted to dis- 
play a royal hospitality and to devote their leisure to 
the study of the art and practice of government, but 
they were great and greatly successful farmers as well. 
The land teemed with all manner of products, cereals, 
fruits, what not! negroes by the hundreds and the 
thousands, under wise directions, gentle but firm con- 
trol, plied the hoe to good purpose. There was enough 
and to spare for all — to spare? aye! to bestow with 
glad and lavish hospitality. A mighty change has 
238 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

been wrought. What that change is in all of its effects 
mine eyes have happily been spared the seeing; but 
well I remember — I can never forget — how from time 
to time the boat would stop at one of these estates, and 
the planter, his wife, his daughters, and the guests 
that were going home with him, would be met by those 
who had remained behind, and how joyous the greet- 
ings were! It was a bright and happy scene, and it 
continually repeated itself as we went onward. 

In fine summer weather, the passengers, male and 
female, stayed most of the time on deck, where there 
was a great deal to interest, and naught to mar the 
happiness, except the oft-repeated warning, "braidge!" 
"low braidge!" No well-regulated packet-hand was 
ever allowed to say plain "bridge"; that was an ety- 
mological crime in canal ethics. For the men, this 
on-deck existence was especially delightful; it is such 
a comfort to spit plump into the water without the 
trouble of feeling around with your head, in the midst 
of a political discussion, for the spittoon. 

As for me, I often went below, to devour Dickens's 
earlier novels, which were then appearing in rapid 
succession. But, drawn by the charm of the scenery, 
I would often drop my book and go back on deck 
again. There was an islet in the river — where, ex- 
actly, I cannot tell — which had a beauty of its own for 
me, because from the moment I first saw it, my pur- 
pose was to make it the scene of a romance, when I 
got to be a great big man, old enough to write for the 
papers. There is a point at which the passengers would 
get off, and taking a near cut across the hills, would 
239 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

stretch their legs with a mile or two of walking. It 
was unmanly, I held, to miss that. Apropos of scen- 
ery, I must not forget the haunted house near Man- 
chester, which was pointed out soon after we left Rich- 
mond, and filled me with awe; for though I said I did 
not believe in ghosts, I did. The ruined mill, a mile 
or two farther on, was always an object of melancholy 
interest to me; and of all the locks from Lynchburg 
down, the Three-Mile Lock pleased me most. It is a 
pretty place, as every one will own on seeing it. It 
was so clean and green, and white and thrifty-looking. 
To me it was simply beautiful. I wanted to live there; 
I ought to have lived there. I was built for a lock- 
keeper — have that exact moral and mental shape. 
Ah! to own your own negro, who would do all the 
drudgery of opening the gates. Occasionally you 
would go through the form of putting your shoulder 
to the huge wooden levers, if that is what they call 
them, by which the gates are opened; to own your own 
negro and live and die calmly at a lock! What more 
could the soul ask? I do think that the finest picture 
extant of peace and contentment — a litde abnormal, 
perhaps, in the position of the animal — is that of a 
sick mule looking out of the window of a canal freight- 
boat. And that you could see every day from the 
porch of your cottage, if you lived at a lock, owned 
your own negro, and there was no great rush of busi- 
ness on the canal, (and there seldom was), on the 
"Jeems and Kanawhy," as old Capt. Sam Wyatt al- 
ways called it, leaving out the word "canal," for that 
was understood. Yes, one ought to live as a pure and 
240 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

resigned lock-keeper, if one would be blest, really 
blest. 

Now that I am on the back track, let me add that, 
however bold and picturesque the cliffs and bluffs 
near Lynchburg and beyond, there was nothing from 
one end of the canal to the other to compare with the 
first sight of Richmond, when, rounding a corner not 
far from Hollywood, it burst full upon the vision, its 
capitol, its spires, its happy homes, flushed with the 
red glow of evening. And what it looked to be, it was. 
Its interior, far from belieing its exterior, surpassed it. 
The world over, there is no lovelier site for a city; and 
the world over there was no city that quite equalled it 
in the charm of its hospitality, its refinement, its intel- 
ligence, its cordial welcome to strangers. Few of its 
inhabitants were very rich, fewer still were very poor. 
But I must not dwell on this. Beautiful city! beauti- 
ful city! you may grow to be as populous as London, 
and surely no one wishes you greater prosperity than 
I; but grow as you may, you can never be happier 
than you were in the days whereof I speak. How 
your picture comes back to me, softened by time, 
glorified by all the tender, glowing tints of memory. 
Around you now is the added glory of history, a de- 
fence almost unrivalled in the annals of warfare; but 
for me there is something even brighter than historic 
fame, a hue derived only from the heaven of memory. 
In my childhood, when all things were beautiful by 
the unclouded light of "the young soul wandering here 
in nature," I saw you in your youth, full of hope, full 
of promise, full of all those gracious influences which 
241 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

made your State greatest among all her sisters, and 
which seemed concentrated in yourself. Be your ma- 
turity what it may, it can never be brighter than 
this. 

To return to the boat. All the scenery in the world 
— rocks that Salvator would love to paint, and skies 
that Claude could never limn — all the facilities for 
spitting that earth affords, avail not to keep a Vir- 
ginian away from a julep on a hot summer day. From 
time to time he would descend from the deck of the 
packet and refresh himself. The bar was small, but 
vigorous and healthy. I was then in the lemonade 
stage of boyhood, and it was not until many years 
afterward that I rose through porterees and claret- 
punches to the sublimity of the sherry cobbler, and 
discovered that the packet bar supplied genuine Ha- 
vana cigars at fourpence-ha'penny. Why, eggs were 
but sixpence a dozen on the canal bank, and the 
national debt wouldn't have filled a teacup. Internal 
revenue was unknown; the coupons receivable for 
taxes inconceivable, and forcible readjustment a thing 
undreamt of in Virginian philosophy. Mr. Mallock's 
pregnant question, "Is life worth living?" was an- 
swered very satisfactorily, methought, as I watched 
the Virginians at their juleps: "Gentlemen, your very 
good health"; "Colonel, my respects to you"; "My 
regards. Judge. When shall I see you again at my 
house ? Can't you stop now and stay a little while, if 
it is only a week or two ?" "Sam," (to the barkeeper), 
"duplicate these drinks." 

How they smacked their lips- how hot the talk on 
242 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

politics became; and how pernicious this example of 
drinking in public was to the boy who looked on! Oh! 
yes ; and if you expect your son to go through life with- 
out bad examples set him by his elders in a thousand 
ways, you must take him to another sphere. Still, the 
fewer bad examples the better, and you, at least, need 
not set them. 

Travelling always with my father, who was a mer- 
chant, it was natural that I should become acquainted 
with merchants. But I remember very few of them. 
Mr. Daniel H. London, who was a character, and Mr. 
Fleming James, who often visited his estate in Roanoke, 
and was more of a character than London, I recall 
quite vividly. I remember, too, Mr. Francis B. Deane, 
who was always talking about Mobjack Bay, and who 
was yet to build the Langhorne Foundry in Lynch- 
burg. I thought if I could just see Mobjack Bay, I 
would be happy. According to Mr. Deane, and I 
agreed with him, there ought by this time to have been 
a great city on Mobjack Bay. I saw Mobjack Bay 
last summer, and was happy. Any man who goes to 
Gloucester will be happy. More marked than all of 
these characters was Major Yancey, of Buckingham, 
"the wheel-horse of Democracy," he was called; Tim. 
Rives, of Prince George, whose face, some said, re- 
sembled the inside of a gunlock, being the war-horse. 
Major Yancey's stout figure, florid face, and animated, 
forcible manner, come back with some distinctness; 
and there are other forms, but they are merely out- 
lines barely discernible. So pass away men who, in 
their day, were names and powers — shadows gone into 
243 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

shadowland, leaving but a dim print upon a few brains, 
which in time will soon j3it away. 

Arrived in Lynchburg, the effect of the canal was 
soon seen in the array of freight-boats, the activity and 
bustle at the packet landing. New names and new 
faces, from the canal region of New York, most likely, 
were seen and heard. I became acquainted with the 
family of Captain Huntley, who commanded one of 
the boats, and was for some years quite intimate with 
his pretty daughters, Lizzie, Harriet, and Emma. 
Captain Huntley lived on Church Street, next door to 
the Reformed, or as it was then called, the Radical 
Methodist Church, and nearly opposite to Mr. Peleg 
Seabury. He was for a time connected in some way 
with the Exchange Hotel, but removed with his family 
to Cincinnati, since when I have never but once heard 
of them. Where are they all, I wonder ? Then, there 
was a Mr. Watson, who lived with Boyd, Edmond & 

Davenport, married first a Miss , and afterward, 

Mrs. Christian, went into the tobacco business in 
Brooklyn, then disappeared, leaving no trace, not the 
slightest. Then there was a rare fellow, Charles Buck- 
ley, who lived in the same store with Watson, had a 
fine voice, and, without a particle of religion in the 
ordinary sense, loved dearly to sing at revivals. I went 
with him; we took back seats, and sang with great 
fervor. This was at night. Besides Captain Huntley, 
I remember among the captains of a later date, Capt. 
Jack Yeatman; and at a date still later his brother, 
Capt. C. E. Yeatman, both of whom are still living. 
There was still another captain whose name was 
244 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

Love something, a very handsome man; and these 

are all. 

In 1849, having graduated in Philadelphia, I made 
one of my last through-trips on the canal, the happy 
owner of a diploma in a green-tin case, and the utterly 
miserable possessor of a dyspepsia which threatened 
my life. I enjoyed the night on deck, sick as I was. 
The owl's "long hoot," the "plaintive cry of the whip- 
poorwill"; the melody — for it is by association a mel- 
ody, which the Greeks have but travestied with their 
hrek-ke-ex, ko-ex — of the frogs, the mingled hum of 
insect life, the "stilly sound" of inanimate nature, the 
soft respiration of sleeping earth, and above all, the 
ineffable glory of the stars. Oh! heaven of heavens, 
into which the sick boy, lying alone on deck, then 
looked, has thy charm fled, too, with so many other 
charms? Have thirty years of suffering, of thought, 
of book-reading, brought only the unconsoling knowl- 
edge, that yonder twinkling sparks of far-off fire are 
not lamps that light the portals of the palace of the 
King and Father, but suns like our sun, surrounded 
by earths full of woe and doubt like our own; and that 
heaven, if heaven there be, is not in the sky; not in 
space, vast as it is; not in time, endless though it be — 
where then? "Near thee, in thy heart!" Who feels 
this, who will say this of himself? Away, thou gray- 
haired, sunken-cheeked sceptic, away! Come back to 
me, come back to me, wan youth; there on that deck, 
with the treasure of thy faith, thy trust in men, thy wor- 
ship of womankind, thy hope, that sickness could not 
chill, in the sweet possibilities of life. Come back to me! 
245 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

— 'Tis a vain cry. The youth lies there on the packet's 
deck, looking upward to the stars, and he will not return. 
The trip in 1849 was a dreary one until there came 
aboard a dear lady friend of mine who had recently 
been married. I had not had a good honest talk with 
a girl for eighteen solid — I think I had better say long, 
(we always say long when speaking of the war) — "fo' 
long years!" — I have heard it a thousand times — for 
eighteen long months, and you may imagine how I 
enjoyed the conversation with my friend. She wasn't 
very pretty, and her husband was a Louisa man; but 
her talk, full of good heart and good sense, put new 
life into me. One other through-trip, the very last, I 
made in 1851. On my return in 1853, I went by rail 
as far as Farmville, and thence by stage to Lynchburg; 
so that, for purposes of through travel, the canal lasted, 
one may say, only ten or a dozen years. And now the 
canal, after a fair and costly trial, is to give place to the 
rail, and I, in common with the great body of Vir- 
ginians, am heartily glad of it. It has served its pur- 
pose well enough, perhaps, for its day and generation. 
The world has passed by it, as it has passed by slavery. 
Henceforth Virginia must prove her metal in the front 
of steam, electricity, and possibly mightier forces still. 
If she can't hold her own in their presence, she must 
go under. I believe she will hold her own; these very 
forces will help her. The dream of the great canal to 
the Ohio, with its nine-mile tunnel, costing fifty or 
more millions, furnished by the general government, 
and revolutionizing the commerce of the United States, 
much as the discovery of America and opening of the 
246 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

Suez Canal revolutionized the commerce of the world, 
must be abandoned along with other dreams. 

One cannot withhold admiration from President 
Johnston and other officers of the canal, who made 
such a manful struggle to save it. But who can war 
against the elements? Nature herself, imitating man, 
seems to have taken special delight in kicking the 
canal after it was down. So it must go. Well, let it 
go. It knew Virginia in her palmiest days and it 
crushed the stage coach; isn't that glory enough? I 
think it is. But I can't help feeling sorry for the bull- 
frogs; there must be a good many of them between 
here and Lexington. What will become of them, I 
wonder ? They will follow their predecessors, the bat- 
teaux; and their pale, green ghosts, seated on the prows 
of shadowy barges, will be heard piping the rounde- 
lays of long-departed joys. 

Farewell canal, frogs, musk-rats, mules, packet- 
horns and all, a long farewell. Welcome the rail 
along the winding valley of the James. Wake up, 
Fluvanna! Arise, old Buckingham! Exalt thyself, O 
Goochland! And thou, O Powhatan, be not afraid 
nor shame-faced any longer, but raise thy Ebenezer 
freely, for the day of thy redemption is at hand. Willis 
J. Dance shall rejoice; yea, Wm. Pope Dabney shall 
be exceeding glad. And all hail our long-lost brother! 
come to these empty, aching arms, dear Lynch's Ferry. 

I have always thought that the unnatural separation 

between Lynchburg and Richmond was the source of 

all our troubles. In some way, not entirely clear to 

me, it brought on the late war, and it will bring on 

247 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

another, if a reunion between the two cities does not 
soon take place. Baltimore, that pretty and attrac- 
tive, but meddlesome vixen, is at the bottom of it all. 
Richmond will not fear Baltimore after the rails are 
laid. Her prosperity will date anew from the time of 
her iron wedding with Lynchburg. We shall see her 
merchants on our streets again, and see them often. 
That will be a better day. 

Alas! there are many we shall not see. John G. 
Meem, Samuel McCorkle, John Robin McDaniel, 
John Hollins, Charles Phelps, John R. D. Payne, Jehu 
Williams, Ambrose Rucker, Wilson P. Byrant (who 
died the other day), and many, many others, will not 
come to Richmond any more. They are gone. And if 
they came, they would not meet the men they used to 
meet; very few of them at least. Jacquelin P. Taylor, 
John N. Gordon, Thomas R. Price, Lewis D. Cren- 
shaw, James Dunlop — why add to the list ? They too 
are gone. 

But the sons of the old-time merchants of Lynch- 
burg will meet here the sons of the old-time merchants 
of Richmond, and the meeting of the two, the mingling 
of the waters — Blackwater creek with Bacon Quarter 
branch — deuce take it! I have gone off on the water 
line again — the admixture, I should say, of the sills of 
Campbell with the spikes of Henrico, the readjust- 
ment, so to speak, of the ties (railroad ties) that bind 
us, will more than atone for the obsolete canal, and 
draw us all the closer by reason of our long separation 
and estrangement. Richmond and Lynchburg united 
will go onward and upward in a common career of 
248 



CANAL REMINISCENCES 

glory and prosperity. And is there, can there be, a 
Virginian, deserving the name, who would envy that 
glory, or for a moment retard that prosperity? Not 
one, I am sure. 

Allow me, now that my reminiscences are ended, 
allow me, as an old stager and packet-horn reverer, 
one last Parthian shot. It is this: If the James River 
does not behave better hereafter than it has done of 
late, the railroad will have to be suspended in mid- 
heavens by means of a series of stationary balloons; 
travelling then may be a little wabbly, but at all events, 
it won't be wet. 



249 



X 

THE SACRED FURNITURE WAREROOMS 

' I ^HE stranger in Lynchburg who stops at the City 
-*- Hotel, in passing to and fro, will not fail to be 
struck with the singular aspect of a building not far 
from his lodgings. Upon the front of this building, 
which stands a little back from the house-line of the 
street, he will find marked — 

"E. J. FOLKES, 

FURNITURE WAREROOMS." 

The shape of the house so marked is unlike the shape 
of houses appropriated to business purposes; but what 
will most curiously attract the stranger's eye, is a little 
belfry perched above the gable. No bell swings in 
that belfry. Under a hastily-made shed-porch in front 
of the house will be found a number of rocking-chairs, 
tables, and other articles, showing what may be ex- 
pected inside. In the sweet summer mornings, the 
proprietor may not infrequently be seen seated in one 
of his rocking-chairs, quietly reading a newspaper. 

If the stranger will venture to open either of the two 
folding doors that give ingress to this building, he will 
find the interior filled to repletion with all manner of 
250 



THE SACRED FURNITURE WAREROOMS 

furniture. Let him go boldly in among the multitude 
of bureaus, sofas, wash-stands, pier-tables, and lounges. 
All is very still there. The bright and glossy crowd of 
dumb domestics are patiently awaiting owners to come 
and claim them. One is reminded of those Northern 
intelligence ofBces, where hosts of Irish and German 
girls sit, without speaking, day after day; only here 
the servants are not flesh and blood, but structures of 
rosewood, mahogany, and marble. 

A strange and not wholly pleasant feeling creeps 
over the visitor as he gazes on the inanimate forms that 
people the broad wareroom. 

If this furniture had been used, if it were old, and 
black, and rickety, the feeling should be desolate in- 
deed. But now that it is new, and rich, and beautiful, 
it should suggest cheerful fancies only. Hither the 
young couples will come to furnish their house — their 
liome — sweet, because it is theirs. In yonder tall ward- 
robe will hang the spotless white dresses of the bride, 
and the brave black finery of the groom. The glass on 
that marble-topped bureau will reflect the blushes of 
her pure young face, and the drawers will be proud to 
hold the delicate laces and the manifold "nice noth- 
ings" that pertain to her in right of her sex. Upon 
that gold-embroidered tete-a-tete, the happy pair will 
tell each other the story of their lovedays — again and 
again — tiring never of that sweet time when the breeze 
blew fresh and fragrant from the ever-nearing Isle of 
Hope. Surely the dumb furniture is eloquent, and 
tells charming stories! 

Nevertheless, to the visitor, meditating in the midst 
251 



THE SACRED FURNITURE WAREROOMS 

of the wareroom, there comes through all the meshes of 
his silver-woven fancies, a something, out of keeping 
with the place, breathing awe upon him. 

What is this? and why comes it? 

It is the nameless spirit that clings to and lingers in 
and around every unpeopled habitation; and it comes 
here with peculiar solemnity and power because this 
wareroom was once the tabernacle and house of the 
Most High God! Yea, it was even so; and albeit the 
pulpit hung with green, the old-fashioned plain benches, 
and the deep-toned bell are gone, the stranger may 
still see that this was a church once. Here the mys- 
terious rites that conjoin the transient mortal with the 
Source infinite and eternal of life, were performed. 
Here religion, in its terror and its tenderness, in the 
sublimity of its hopes and the boundlessness of its 
despair, was preached by lips fired almost to prophecy; 
here prayers as pure as ever trembled up to God's 
throne were uttered; and here repentance as sincere 
as ever transformed erring men was felt and avowed. 
Can a soul know its unseen tragedies in time and 
place, and leave no mute record there ? Can the glow 
and the joy of a faith that dulls the last sharp pang, 
and triumphs over decay be felt, and the spot that 
saw the birth of that faith bear no witness of it ? Can 
celestial ministers bring messages of everlasting peace 
to the fear-harrowed soul, and no lingering trace, per- 
ceptible to the finer senses, remain upon the walls hal- 
lowed by the touches of their wings, and on the floor 
pressed once by their noiseless sandals? Nay, truly. 
If the fireside delights, and all the "fair humanities" 
252 



THE SACRED FURNITURE WAREROOMS 

that endear the humblest dwelling, will cluster about 
the broken hearthstone, and redeem with tenderest 
suggestions the horror of the charred and fallen rafters, 
how much more shall the higher emotions of religion 
hallow holier places, and with greater tenacity cling 
to ruined shrines and deserted churches! 

But the palpable awe of the sacred wareroom must 
be vague and fleeting to the stranger. It is deep, it 
is lasting to him who remembers the old church in 
its prime. When the white palings in front enclosed 
a little yard, green with a patch of sward on either 
side, and a little paper-mulberry tree in the centre of 
each patch. When the bell, tolling early on a bright 
Sunday morning, summoned the children, clean with 
starched white clothes, to the Sabbath-school. When 
the mind, fretted now and hardened with business 
cares, was concerned about the questions of the cate- 
chism, and the ear familiar with the getting-by-heart 
hum of the hundred round-faced scholars. 

Graver was the time when the morning service 
came. The little yard was filled then with gentlemen 
grouped about the mulberry tree, after they had as- 
sisted the ladies in to the right-hand door. Youths 
were there, arrayed in their best, watching the fair 
faces and the charming figures as they came walking, 
or tripped lightly out of carriages. 

Within all was hushed. The scholars, who short- 
while hummed so loudly, were silent now, and sat 
demurely by their parents' sides, with restless feet 
that could not touch the floor. Soon, overcome with 
heat, the little forms would be stretched upon the 
253 



THE SACRED FURNITURE WAREROOMS 

bench, the moist young brows, protected by a kindly 
handkerchief, reposing in a father's or a mother's 
lap. 

Alas! they who slept sweet slumbers in the happy 
day when this wareroom was a church, shall sleep thus 
again no more. The hands whose gentle touches 
waked those sleepers when the sermon ended, have 
mouldered into dust, or tremble now with the palsy of 
age. The flight of years has made men and women 
of those children who in this wareroom first heard 
the public accents of prayer and praise. Their youth 
is gone, and with it the wonder and the beauty of life, 
and almost of religion. 

Memories still more solemn come to him who once 
sat in this sanctuary — memories of high religious fes- 
tivals and revivals, with their excitement, their power, 
their terror, with that wondrous fascination which the 
sight of weeping men and women, repenting, and 
heart-broken, and joyful, must ever give. 

But sadder yet, and sweeter than these, come mem- 
ories imbued with the intense and mysterious charm 
of sacred music. 

Ah! the singers, the singers that sang in this old 
church! Few, very few of them remain. Some sing 
no longer; some have wandered from the fold; some 
live in far States and in other cities; and some — are 
sleeping. 

One noble old man, whose fine, venerable head kept 

time to the divine music in his heart, we all remember. 

Warm was he; true, upright, full of love toward his 

fellow-man, full of service to his Master, and not to be 

254 



THE SACRED FURNITURE WAREROOMS 

wearied in well-doing. Who that ever heard him can 
forget with what fervor he was wont to sing: 

' All hail the power of Jesus name, 
Let angels prostrate fall; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all." 



lending his whole soul to the melodious utterance of 
that name he loved so well? 

His earthly voice fell silent long ago; his honored 
dust reposes in the graveyard of his church; and there 
a marble obelisk rises to attest the esteem his townsmen 
justly bore him. 

One other singer, the sweetest that ever sang in this 
old church, returns dim but beautiful to the filling 
eyes that gaze upon the dead space where once her 
living self — lovely in the dawn of womanhood and in 
the beauty of her guilelessness — sang praises to Him 
who is the source of beauty and of truth. How pure, 
how sweet, how tender, was her voice! the vocal life 
of her sinless heart! the fit, intelligent, worshipful, lov- 
ing instrument to hymn the highest music! 

Unhappy, unhappy singer! Neither thy beauty, nor 
thy sweetness, nor thy sinlessness, could save thee from 
the appointed sorrow. It is over now. The sweet 
voice is dumb, the loveful lips are ashes, and the true, 
stainless woman's heart shall throb no more, no more 
for ever. All of her that could fade lies in the church- 
yard, not far from him, the noble Christian father and 
friend of humanity, whose voice often blended with her 
own sweet tones when on earth they sang together the 
255 



THE SACRED FURNITURE WAREROOMS 

songs of Zion. Over her, the leaves, dark and glossy- 
green, of the sombre oaks have lightly moved to the 
sighing winds of many vernal morns; and upon her 
tomb, through the long nights of many autumns, those 
leaves, grown sere, have fallen fast, as tears to weep 
her mournful fate. Peace be to her, and joy, and love ! 
Other singers there were in this old church, and others 
still who sang only in their hearts; all worthy to be 
named, and all too sadly well remembered and recalled 
by those who see the bowed forms, clad in deep crape, 
that tremblingly walk the aisles of the new church, and 
who miss the reverent faces from their accustomed 
pew, and hear no more the well-known voices in the 
choir. 

Alas! for life's changes; alas! for those that have 
already come; and for those yet to come — unknown 
changes — but which must come — oh! how shall we bear 
them? 

The new times demanded the new church; its gothic 
beauty deserves the admiration it has received; its 
organ, touched by a master's hand, doth utter forth a 
glorious voice; but so long as one beam of the old 
church is fastened to another, and so long as memory 
holds her seat, so long there will be one who will turn 
from the finer architecture of the modern structure and 
forget the grander music of the organ, to muse over 
the simpler manners of the past, and to bring back 
the plain hymn-music and the singers that sang it of 
old, in the Sacred Furniture Warerooms. 



256 



XI 

MY VILE BEARD 

I 

GETTING SHAVED IN CHARLOTTE 

T HAVEN'T got much beard, but what little there is 
-*- of it is the worst kind of beard. In the first place, 
it is more like Berlin wire, tough and hard, than an 
animal or other substance. 

Some people, you know, contend that the hair and 
nails are vegetables, inasmuch as they continue to 
grow after a body is dead. But my beard is a metal. 
In the next place, my beard crops out at all sorts of 
angles, that on my chin growing downward, like any- 
body else's, while that on my cheeks grows upward, 
and that on my throat emerges sideways in every di- 
rection, like the rays of a starfish. Lastly, my skin is 
exceedingly tender, my jaws very hollow, and my neck 
scraggy and fluted, like a consumptive Corinthian 
column — if you can imagine such a thing. The con- 
sequence is that I can't shave myself, even if I knew 
how to sharpen a razor, a feat which I have often at- 
tempted, and shall never perform. That's certain, for 
I've tried and tried, till there is no use in trying. In- 
257 



MY VILE BEARD 

deed, it is impossible for a barber to shave me clean. 
You see, he can't get at my beard, and if he could, he 
dare not shave both ways, for if he does he leaves my 
face as bloody as a black-heart cherry, just skinned. 

Leander Harrison, the best barber in the State, 
according to my thinking, will tell you that my beard 
is the worst beard that ever disfigured the human 
visage. 

How serious a thing it is not to be able to shave 
myself you will be able to understand as soon as I tell 
you how I got shaved in Charlotte. Listen: In the 
year 1850 or 1851 — the date is not important — I 
started from town — what town? — on horseback — 
whose horse's back? If you had seen my horse, you 
would at once have detected my business. He was 
a showy horse, and his trappings, down to the very 
martingale, were spick and span new. Saddle-bags 
were new, and full of new clothes. Umbrella was 
new, hat new, gloves new, whip new — in fact, the 
whole turnout, rider included, had that slick varnished 
look that things have when fresh from the hands of 
the cabinet-maker. I was five and twenty years old, 
and the summer was just closing. Surely you must 
guess that, although I was not going north, my object 
was to lay in a stock of dry goods for the fall. 

The day was fine. I had a plenty of excellent cigars, 
and never felt better in my life. 

Our appearance ("our" meaning the horse and my- 
self) attracted the attention of everybody we passed. 
We were especially pleased with the compliment passed 
upon us by one of a group of small negroes, who as- 
258 



MY VILE BEARD 

sembled around us when we stopped at a woe-begone 
house on the roadside to get a drink of water. The 
compHment ran thus: "Unh! if dat ar ain't de pootyest 
white man and de pootyest hoss and bridle, I wisht I 
may nuvver." Under the impulse of this praise we 
struck off gaily into that lonesome road that leads to 
the particular locality in the County of Charlotte which 
was the goal of my ambition. For twenty miles we 
passed not a solitary traveller, and scarcely a human 
habitation. 

I recall only a single log-hut on the left-hand side 
of the road. Some two score sickly tobacco plants 
crowded up to the very door of this hut, showing that 
it was inhabited; but not a living thing was visible. 

Fifty yards down the road I overtook a draggle- 
tailed rooster, who ran out of my way and hid behind 
a chestnut tree, and set up a crow in the weak accents 
of unmistakable bronchitis. My horse switched his 
tail as if to resent the insult, and on we went along the 
lonely road. I began to feel not so comfortable in the 
saddle as I had been at starting, and my high spirits 
abated. As I had never been in that region before, it 
soon became very certain that my invariable rule of 
getting lost had not been broken. But there was the 
"main, plain road," and all I had to do was to follow 
it. So I followed it. And the trot of the showy horse 
became harder and harder. Nothing but the ever- 
delightful and continually recurring reverie, in which 
I had been indulging from the moment I set out, sus- 
tained me while that showy horse trotted harder and 
still harder along that dreary road through the inter- 
259 



MY VILE BEARD 



minable chestnut woods. All at once I was rudely 
awakened from my delicious day-dream. The horse 
had stopped; and this is what made him stop: 



eNteRTaNemEnt 
By reuBin b Riles 



This sign, painted in white letters on a black ground, 
was fastened by a wooden pin, driven through its cen- 
tre, into an augur hole in an immense hewn gate-post. 
There was one post, and no fence at all, only a horse- 
rack, made of a piece of cedar, with its many branches 
trimmed off, laid upon two forked uprights of Spanish 
oak. The house had been a large and a good one. 
Now it was far gone in dark decay, as were also the 
few remaining out-houses. All the old trees had died 
out; one side of the large yard contained a thicket of 
young locusts, while the other was unshaded, and 
almost grassless. 

I thought to myself that Mr. Briles's entertainment 
was likely to be rather indifferent. Still, it was the 
best I could do. So, seeing nobody, I sang out, after 
the English fashion — 

"House!" 

No answer. 

"House!" 

Not a word. 

"HOUSE!"— this time as loud as I could bawl. 

To my surprise I was answered from behind. 

"'Tain't 'house,' 'tis Briles." 
260 



MY VILE BEARD 

"Ah!" said I, turning around, "how do you do, sir ?" 

"Right peart; how'd y' come on yourself?" 

The speaker was a fine specimen of a Virginia coun- 
tryman; over six feet, bony, dark, athletic, but lazy, 
good-natured, yet passionate, and clad only in a coarse 
shirt and still coarser "bluein" pantaloons. 

"What place is this?" I asked. 

"Brileses." 

"And where is Mr. Briles?' 

"Wharuvver he is thar you'll find me." 

"Well, Mr. Briles, can I get dinner?" 

"Sertney you kin. We all done dinner mo'n two 
hours, and I was jes goin' squrl huntin' ; but the leaves 
is too thick yet awhile, and thar's plenty a time befo' 
sundown. I recon we can git you up somethin' or 
nuther pretty quick that'll do to stay your stummuck. 
Boy!" 

"Boy" was uttered in a tone calculated to raise the 
dead, and very soon a cornfield hand came running to 
take my horse. Dismounting slowly, I found myself 
so sore from the trotting I had undergone that I could 
hardly walk into the house, the inside of which I will 
not describe, lest it make this story too long. Suffice 
it to say, that it corresponded with the outside. De- 
positing my bran new saddle-bags on the bench — it 
was mighty hard — in the porch, I sat down and took 
off my hat and cravat, the better to cool off. 

"Take somethin'. Mister?" 

"With great pleasure," I replied. 

"'Tain't so dog-goned good, but you're 'bundant 
welcome to it. Spos'n I make you a julep ? " 
261 



MY VILE BEARD 

•^'Very well," said I. 

A julep of new whiskey, with brown sugar, and 
without ice is rather a hard thing to worry down, but 
I was so exhausted that I really enjoyed it. After I 
had finished it, I asked Briles: "What county is 
this?" 

"Tcharlut." 

"What?" 

"Tcharlut; the County uv Tcharlut." 

"Oh! Charlotte." 

"Yes; Tcharlut." 

"Well, how far is it from here to the court house?" 

"A little over twenty-one miles — jest twenty-one mile 
to a nit's night-cap from that ar big white oak up 
yonder at the forks uv the road." 

"And what is this part of the country called? Has 
it any particular name?" 

"To be sho'. Right here is Brileses, which it is a 
presink; but this here ridge ar called 'Venjunce 
Ridge.' " 

"Indeed! Why so?" 

"They was bleest to name it somethin', I reckon, 
and that's what it took its name from." 

"Ah! Well, does a gentleman named Cooke live 
anywhere in this neighborhood?" 

"Thar's old Beazly Cooke keeps a wheelwright shop 
up here about two miles down in the Cub Creek Hol- 
low." 

"He is not the man." 

"Thar's Joneeston Cooke, owns 'bout two hundred 
niggers, on the river." 

262 



MY VILE BEARD 

"No; it is not he." 

"Oh!" he exclaimed, with the most inoffensive im- 
pertinence. "Oh! I seen your hand plain — two bul- 
lets and a bragger — a queen by the livins! It's the 
ole captain you mean. I might a' known you was 
arter courtin somethin'. He's rich as mornin's milk." 

"Why, you don't expect me to court himf" 

"Yes, maybe I don't. Ef he didn't had them thou- 
sand acres o' low groun's that ar bridle and saddle 
would nuvver have stopped at Brileses." 

"Well," said I, "if you will turn a city collector into 
a courting man, I can't help it." 

"Pretty decking you'll do, I jes bet. You'll cleckt 
a hundred and twenty poun' uv lady-meat and about 
thirty niggers, or else you'll cleckt a kicking; one or 
tuther, sertin." 

All this was said in such an indescribably good- 
natured, honest tone, that I could not take offence. 
So I told Briles that I would take a nap until dinner 
was ready. 

In what appeared to me a half minute, but was in 
fact half an hour, I was awakened by Briles, and told 
that dinner was on the table. A small table, covered 
with a dingy cloth, was placed in the middle of the 
dining-room, and thereon I found chicken, ham and, 
eggs, some sweet potatoes and butter-beans. In ad- 
dition to these, there was a plate of good butter, a 
pitcher of milk, and three large hoe-cakes. This was 
the dinner. Affixed to the ceiling, just over the table, 
I perceived one of those fixtures which years ago used 
to be in vogue in much larger taverns, called, I believe, 
263 



MY VILE BEARD 

a fan. It consisted of a long piece of red cloth, sus- 
pended by mechanical contrivances which I cannot 
describe, and was kept in motion by means of a rope 
pulled by a negro boy, who stood exactly in the centre 
of the fire-place. As I sat down, the boy began to 
pull the fan with vigor. 

Briles apologized for his dinner. "It's pritty po' 
eatin', and if you jest had waited tel supper time, I'd 
a had you some squrls. We kill a ram lam' yistiddy, 
the finest you uvver see, fat two inches thick on the 
ribs, but the nigger took and put it in the spring house, 
thout fastnin' the do,' and the fust thing a ole houn' 
sneak in thar and eat it up clean to the bone." Dur- 
ing these remarks, Briles once or twice interrupted 
himself to say in a loud voice, "boy!" to which the 
negro pulling the fan would answer "suh," and pull 
the fan more vigorously than before. Then Briles 
would go on with what he had to say. But he was 
evidently annoyed about something. 

"Of co'se the dog didn't eat " 

"Boy!" 

"Suh." 

The fan fluttered faster. 

"Didn't eat all the lam', because " 

"Boy!" 

"Suh." 

The fan flapped still faster. 

"Because we all had done sent a good part of it 
away to vayus neighbors " 

"Boy!" 

"Suh." 

264 



MY VILE BEARD 

The fan was going at a terrific rate. Briles thun- 
dered out — 

"Boy! don't be so dam' induschus!" Never was a 
negro so taken aback. He had supposed all the time, 
that the object of his master in calling him was to 
urge him on in the work of keeping off the flies with 
the fan, and now, when he discovered his mistake, I 
don't think the whole County of "Tcharlut" could 
have presented a more pitiably chop-fallen spectacle. 
I laughed outright. But Briles glared at him savagely, 
until I thought he would have fallen where he stood. 

When dinner was over, the master of the house in- 
vited me to go out hunting with him, a proposition to 
which I would willingly have acceded, if I had not 
been so stiff and sore. Briles went off. I lighted my 
cigar and lolled upon the bench in the porch. I pass 
over the night and the particulars of my introduction 
to Mrs. Briles, who proved to be both ugly and quar- 
relsome — for which last Briles, very confidingly, ac- 
counted, by saying "there nuvver was no peace in no 
family that didn't have children." 

The next morning I found myself even more stiff and 
sore than I had been the evening previous. Every 
joint ached. It was plain that I had to pass the day 
at Briles's, Briles did his best to make my stay agree- 
able, but the constant sharp voice of Mrs. Briles, as 
she scolded the negroes in the back yard, and my 
natural impatience to reach my journey's end, made 
all his efforts abortive. 

However, the second morning came and found me, 
not exactly supple, but able to mount the trotting- 
265 



MY VILE BEARD 

horse again, and to endure him for a season. I de- 
termined to hasten on immediately after breakfast. 
But when I went to the Httle dingy-looking glass to 
brush my hair, a terrible fact was revealed to me: 
My heard was three days old! Shave I must, and 
that immediately; but I could not shave myself. I 
had no razor. Strange that I had never thought of 
that before leaving town. But somebody must shave 
me. Who? There were no barbers in that country; 
it was doubtful whether Briles ever shaved at all; and 
what to do I knew not. The case, as it appeared to 
me at this time, was so grave that I find it impossible 
to impart it. I was young, was going to a highly 
respectable house, on business of the utmost import- 
ance. It was indispensable to a good first impression 
that my appearance should at least be decent. As 
these reflections crowded upon me, I made up my 
mind to return to town, get shaved, and bring a barber 
back with me. 

When I went down to breakfast I told Briles of my 
unhappy condition. Sympathizing with me, he said 
he "wished to goodness he could shave me, but he 
couldn't. He could trim ha'r tollibly, but never had 
laid no razor to no man's jaw but his own," After 
thinking over the matter for some time, it suddenly 
occurred to him that his man "Benj'min" had worked 
on the "Cunnel," and may be he knew how to shave. 
So Benj'min was called. He proved to be a clumsy, 
self-important creature, who "'low'd he could shave a 
gent'man good as any barber." Rather than ride back 
thirty miles to town, I consented to let Benjamin try 
266 



MY VILE BEARD 

his hand on me, upon the following terms, proposed 
by himself: 

1. He didn't want me to pay him nuthin no way. 

2. If he "made the bleed come," he "wouldn't take 
nuthin if I was to gin it to him." 

3. He agreed to shave me "two days under the skin." 

4. If I had "a little ole wescut or hankcher," Ben- 
jamin would be a thousand times "obleeged" to me 
for either of them. 

This contract being accepted on my part, Briles 
went off to a "vandue," and Benjamin went off after 
his shaving implements. I waited in moody silence 
his return. 

Soon I heard Mrs. Briles quarrelling with Benjamin 
because he attempted to take some of the cook's hot 
water, and thought something was said about "soap," 
but of this last I was not certain. I waited and waited. 
It was fully an hour before Benjamin came back. In 
one hand he held a tin bucket, such as negroes use to 
carry their dinner to the field, full of hot water; in the 
other was a large, round, dark-bay, ugly-looking gourd; 
and under his arm was what appeared to me to be a 
leather surcingle, a mop, and a bowie-knife; but I 
was so mad with him on account of his delay that I 
could not see very well. He came into the porch, 
where I sat, with a smile of intense self-esteem on his 
face, and said he had been detained all this time by 
honing the razor. I answered not a word. Setting 
down his implements on the bench behind me, he 
stood irresolute for a time, and finally went off. I sat 
still as a stone. He soon returned with an axe and a 
267 



MY VILE BEARD 

nail. Driving the nail partway into one of the pillars 
of the porch, he bent the head upward so as to form a 
hook, and to this hook he attached the leather surcin- 
gle (it was over a yard long), and began to "strop" 
the bowie-knife, which proved, however, to be a razor, 
or rather a cross between a razor and a broad-axe. 
Never before or since have I seen such an implement. 
I looked on, without saying a word. He talked and 
strapped, and strapped and talked. When he had 
finished strapping his broad-axe (it took him a quarter 
of an hour to do so), he tested its sharpness by nicking 
his thumb-nail and by splitting a thread of his wool. 
I kept perfectly quiet. Regarding myself as a doomed 
man, I sat quite passive and ready to meet my fate. 
He laid down his razor and went behind me to get the 
tin-bucket and other things. I have had many sen- 
sations in my time, but I doubt if all of them put to- 
gether could produce quite so harrowing a state of 
mind and body as I experienced when that negro came 
forward with a large painter's brush (it was not a 
mop), and a gourd full of soft soap — this home-made, 
greasy, villainous stuff. But I held my peace. He 
lathered me. Ugh I I shudder when I think of it. 
But he did lather me up to my very temples and down 
to my breast-bone. And such lather! Whew! I 
opened not my mouth. Nay, verily — not in the pres- 
ence of thai lather. After he had invested my counte- 
nance with the nauseous froth, Benjamin gave his 
baby broad-axe a few more whets on the surcingle, and 
the amputation of my beard commenced. During the 
first few strokes I was agreeably surprised, the broad- 
268 



MY VILE BEARD 

axe seemed to cut so smoothly. But when he had 
scraped my jaws pretty thoroughly and got over to the 
fluted part of my neck, where the beard grew like the 
vortex of a whirlpool, I became conscious of a pain 
that no man — certainly no woman — ever realized. I 
cannot describe it. It was like tearing the skin off and 
sticking of red-hot needles into the raw meat, as fast 
as it appeared under the razor. But it was something 
more than this — something more than the dumb rage 
I felt, added to this, and something more than the aw- 
ful odor of the soft-soap lather, added to that. Imag- 
ine it! But, like a stoic, I bore it without a murmur. 
Nay, I kept my fury so quiet that I did not even make 
a comment when Benjamin made the remark, for 
which I had been looking: "Dar now!" said he, "de 
blood ar done come, spite 'o all I could do. Dis razor 
shave mighty easy, I boun; but den de skin on yo' 
nake 'pear to be monsus weak, monsus." 

The fact is, the blood was trickling down my breast. 

As I made no answer, Benjamin dipped his paint 
brush into the soap-gourd, lathered me anew, and 
kept on shaving. 

"I done shave you down," said he, after awhile, 
"right clean and good. Now I gwine ter shave you 
up. I 'spec when it go agin de grain, it ar mos' likely 
to giv some trouble, but tain' no use o' shavin' un- 
less you gwine ter do de thing as it ought to be 
done." 

So he shaved me against the grain, and I gritted my 
teeth, determined to bear the torture without a groan, 
if I died under his hand. At last he got through "shav- 
269 



MY VILE BEARD 

ing me up" and began running his finger about in the 
greasy soap-suds on my throat to feel which way the 
beard grew, stopping now and then to staunch the 
flowing blood with a towel, and promising me that as 
soon as he got through he would make it all right "by 
plarsterin' de beard-holes with a little sut." In get- 
ting at the before-mentioned vortex of beard, he as- 
sumed all sorts of attitudes and bent my head and 
neck in all manner of directions, until I thought he 
would end by twisting my head entirely off. He got 
in front of me, behind me, on my right side, on my 
left side, and in between my legs. He was very rough 
and very determined to fulfill his promise to shave me 
two days under the skin. Still I gritted my teeth and 
let him keep on his murderous operation. The job 
was not an easy one. I felt something almost like 
pleasure when he began to perspire and to show anger, 
as if the beard were a personal enemy whom he could 
not conquer. 

"Good G — d A'mighty! what a beard!" he at length 
exclaimed. "It 'pear to grow farst is you shave it." 

I answered not a word. 

It is probable that I could have gone through with 
that terrific shaving without a syllable of complaint, 
if Benjamin had not wounded my pride as well as my 
person. Getting to a little spot just under the angle 
of my jaw, where the beard was peculiarly twisted in 
its growth, he became fairly puzzled. He did his best 
to get at it, but he could not. This way and that, be- 
hind me and before me, on either side, every way, he 
tried, but all in vain. Then it was that he broke out, 
270 



MY VILE BEARD 

in the most offensive tone imaginable, with the follow- 
ing unparalleled proposition. 

"My little marster, there's 'bout three or fo' uv the 
outrajusist little hars here I uvver did see. I carn't 
gether um, all I kin do. Couldn't you — couldn't you 
— a — urrah — couldn't you jes staii' on yo' hade (head) 
for a minute or two, if you please, sir." 

The words "stan' on yo' hade" were hardly out of 
his mouth before he was lying flat on his back. In a 
frenzy of passion, which had been restrained until it 
could be restrained no longer, I knocked him senseless 
with a chair. It was like lightning, so quickly and 
fiercely was it done; and to this day I have never been 
able to tell how I kept from killing him outright. And 
this was the way I got shaved in "Tcharlut." It is 
enough to make me "stan' on my hade" whenever I 
think of it. The rest of the adventure you shall hear. 

II 

THE THROAT-CUT LOVER 

I LEFT Brileses' with a throat perfectly raw and 
bloody, the maddest man the world that day contained, 
and in the worst possible plight to go a courting. But 
go I must, and court I must. To return home would 
have been folly; I was under a solemn promise to be 
at the young lady's house by a certain day. So I paid 
Briles his bill — a very small one — accepted, not with 
the best grace, his condolence and his promise to 
thrash Benj'min soundly, indignantly rejected Mrs. 
271 



MY VILE BEARD 

Briles's proffer to "ease my misery by wropping my 
throat in a strip of fat bacon-rine that would go round 
twice't," and set forth. My throat pained me terribly; 
my anger was high, and I rode on as fast as my horse 
could carry me. The few persons I encountered eyed 
me with a strange look; but I was out of sight before 
they could make a remark. Crossing the river, I 
entered the County of Halifax — not without some awk- 
ward questions from the ferryman. Leaving the fer- 
tile lowlands, I ascended a low range of hills, trotted 
rapidly along the ridge, and about dinner hour found 
myself lost. Then, for the first time, I observed the 
very red aspect of my bosom. My collar was in even a 
worse condition; it was a bloody rag. My throat was 
still bleeding. Dismounting from my horse, I repaired 
to a marshy spot in the woods, and gave my neck a 
good bathing. The water was warm, but the astring- 
ent property imparted to it by the oak leaves which 
had fallen made it act like a charm. It staunched the 
blood completely, and, though it burnt me severely at 
first, produced the most soothing and grateful after- 
effect. Feeling much relieved, I sat down on the root 
of a tree, and wiped my neck as well as I could with 
my handkerchief. I then concluded that the best 
thing, nay, the indispensable thing, for me to do, was 
to divest myself of my sanguineous under-garment, 
and put on a clean one. Accordingly, I went for my 
saddle-bags, brought them into the woods, about twenty- 
feet or more from the road, opened them, pulled out 
a — a — a nicely ironed a — urah, and proceeded to make 
a sylvan toilette. Meanwhile, I became exceedingly 
272 



MY VILE BEARD 

hungry. To stay my hunger, I lit a cigar. My gar- 
ment was just on, but not a single button buttoned, 
when a negro boy came riding by on a mule, I called 
to him to stop. He did so; looked around, but saw 
nobody. I told him to wait a minute until I could get 
ready. Though he could not see me, I could see him 
very plainly; and as he was evidently a little frightened, 
I thought it advisable to go up to him, and ask him to 
tell me the way to the place I was going. Out I 
walked, accoutred as I was, white above and dark 
below — my pantaloons being dark grey — and cigar in 
mouth. 

As soon as he saw me, he turned to run, but, on 
second thought held his ground. But the moment I 
got close to him, he bounced off the mule and ran 
through the woods, bawling as hard as he could. Of 
course I ran after him. It would never do to let slip 
the only chance I had of ascertaining my whereabouts. 
The little devil ran like a deer; but after a hard chase 
I overtook him and collared him. The moment I 
laid my hands on him, he made the woods ring with 
piercing screams, and in a very short time I was sur- 
rounded by half a dozen rough, powerful white men, 
one of whom, armed with a sledge-hammer, threatened 
to "bust my derned head open ef I didn't let that ar 
boy go." 

It turned out that the spot where I caught the boy 
was but a few hundred yards from the interesting vil- 
lage, or blacksmith's shop, of "Madison's Cross 
Roads," and that the amiable gentlemen who sur- 
rounded me comprised a large majority of its popula- 
273 



MY VILE BEARD 

tion, I explained to them at once the reason why I 
had run after the boy, and even went so far as to tell 
them about my getting shaved in Charlotte, thus ac- 
counting for the very suspicious appearance of my 
throat and the singularity of my costume. Some of 
them looked as if they believed me; others did not. 
I overheard one fellow whisper to his friend: 

"That man's bin hung. Don't you see his neck? 
He needn't tell me nothing 'bout his gittin' shaved at 
Briles's. Briles's Ben kin shave good as anybody. 

"I think I heerd thar was a man hung last Friday in 
Pittsylvany, and that ar is the man to a dead moral 
certainty." 

"1 don't like his looks, neither," was the reply. 
"But if a man's bin hung wunst, you can't hang him 
nar a'nuther time for the same offenst. Its agin the 
law. But what was he a doing to Bruce's Jim? He 
couldn't a wanted to kill the nigger; reck'n he could?" 

"Dunno," said the first speaker. "He's got the 
worst face I uvver see on top of any man. He ain't 
too good to commit murder jest to keep his hand in." 

While this agreeable conversation was going on, I 
busied myself in buttoning up my apparel and making 
myself as decent as I could. By the time I got through 
the citizens of Madison's Cross Roads drew off a little 
way, as if to consult what was best to be done with 
me. I awaited patiently their decision. The spokes- 
man came forward and said: 

"Mister, you tell a mighty straight sort of story, 
but you've got a kind uv count'nance that none uv we 
all don't like. I don't want to hurt your feelins, but 
274 



MY VILE BEARD 

the sooner you git away from Madison's Cross Roads 
the better. You say you're going down to Squire 
Cookses. Well, you ken jes go 'long. But I'm a 
coming thar soon to-morrow morning, and ef your 
story ain't crobborated by facts, I'm gwine to take you 
up, according to law." 

They all turned and walked off, taking Bruce's Jim 
with them, I laughed and went to my saddlebags, 
finished dressing, mounted my steed and started off 
quite gaily, both pain and hunger having disappeared 
under the excitement of my amusing interview with 
the fierce Madison's Cross Roaders. Unfortunately, 
the only information I had been able to get in regard 
to the locality of Squire Cooke's, was to the effect that 
it was "a right sharp ways down the road, jinin' John 
Thompson's land, after you get over the creek." As 
I rode on, it occurred to me that it would be a good 
thing to tie my handkerchief around my neck, which 
began to feel sore again, and to bleed a little. This I 
did, and felt the better for it. But now my hunger 
returned with great violence. I got down from my 
horse, and ate a few chestnuts that I found under the 
leaves; but these served only to make me still hun- 
grier. I again mounted and rode forward. Emerging 
at length from the seemingly interminable woods, I 
beheld, to my great joy, an apple orchard, sure sign of 
a house in the neighborhood, though none was in 
view. A fine tree, loaded with big red apples, was not 
far from the fence, and in a very few minutes I had a 
dozen in my hands and my pockets, and was sitting on 
the fence eating them with great relish. Up came a 
275 



MY VILE BEARD 

shabbily-dressed old fellow, riding a sorrel mare, with 
awkward colt behind her. Thinking him some third- 
rate farmer, I hailed him in a free and easy manner, and 
asked him how far it was to old Squire Cooke's. He 
replied stiffly, that it was but a short distance. I 
told him that I was on the way to the squire's house, 
and as I had already lost myself twice, I would be 
obliged to him it he would show me the exact place. 

The old fellow bestowed a suspicious glance upon 
me, wrinkled his shaggy eye-brows, in token of satis- 
faction or the reverse, and said: 

"If you will follow me, I will show you the house." 

You guess the sequel, O reader. The old fellow 
was Squire Cooke himself. 

I spare you the recital of my inward pangs and con- 
fused apologies when the awkward discovery was 
made. One thing I congratulated myself upon, viz.: 
that I had not (as I was in an ace of doing several 
times) asked the old fellow if Squire Cooke was as well 
off as people said he was, and whether he was a skin- 
flint, as I had heard. 

My reception by Mrs. Cooke was kind, by her 
daughter cordial. The squire kept very grim. At 
dinner we had corn-pudding, late in the year as it was. 
Like a fool, I said nothing to account for the alarming 
appearance of my throat, which was fully exposed to 
view, owing to the fact that it was so sore outside that 
the bare idea of tying a cravat tightly around it, to hide 
it, was agonizing. The old lady, obliged to talk to 
me, always took care to let her eyes fall below the 
level of my hair, which was not pretty hair. My 
276 



MY VILE BEARD 

inamorata looked cold. The hideous redness of my 
throat had begun to tell on her. I felt uneasy. The 
servants gazed at me very much. Pater familias ate 
a great deal and said nothing. My face began to get 
as red as my throat. In this pleasant state of bash- 
fulness, and while I was in the act of carrying the 
first forkful of corn-pudding to my mouth, the old 
gentleman addressed me a question. You know how 
corn-pudding retains its heat? I knew it too, but in 
my confusion forgot it. So when the old gentleman 
suddenly spoke to me, pop! the burning mass of corn- 
pudding slipped off my fork, fell down my loose collar, 
and lodged exactly where my throat was rawest!! 
Don't ask what I did. Hah! but it was hot! If I 
didn't hear things fizz under the corn-pudding, I felt 
thqpi. I did not sit still. I did not keep quiet. I 
did not display any heroism. I don't know precisely 
how I acted. Think I howled. Expect I danced 
round the room. Believe I swore. Remember I cried. 
The pain was mighty bad. The chagrin was worse. 
Know I cared nothing for the dignity of manhood. 
Know I tore open my collar, my bosom, my vest, and 
snatched out the pudding, as much as I could get of it. 
It burnt my fingers, and I slung it off, little caring where 
it went. Think it spattered the old gentleman's face. 
You are correct in saying that I ought not to have for- 
gotten that I was in the presence of my sweetheart, 
and ought to have borne the pain with a smiling 
visage. I dare say. Yes, I ought to have been very 
smiling. But what is a sweetheart to a man with an 
ounce of corn-pudding frying away on his raw throat? 
277 



MY VILE BEARD 

Answer me that. Everything was done for me that 
could be done, and in process of time I became as 
easy as a man could well be under the circumstances. 
But I felt small inclination to make love to Miss 
Cooke. Nor did Miss Cooke seem to expect it. She 
played on the piano, talked about trifles, and was alto- 
gether too condoling. I discovered a number of de- 
fects in her character. She seemed fond of alluding 
to painful subjects. She lacked genuine feeling for 
the afflicted. There was a good deal of hypocrisy in 
her amiable nature. I was glad when bedtime came. 

Slept badly. Throat hurt me. About day, fell into 
an uneasy doze, from which I was awakened by a 
noise in the yard. My friends of Madison's Cross 
Road had come to arrest me, as a man who had im- 
pertinently escaped from the gallows, and tried to kill 
or kidnap one of Bruce's negroes. Fortunately, the 
squire was a magistrate, and after hearing the evidence 
of his daughter, summoned into the parlor before sun- 
rise as a witness, dismissed the case, and sent the 
Madison's Cross Roaders home, grumbling and dis- 
satisfied. They wanted my blood; that was plain. 

My trial did not improve my position as a suitor in 
the eyes of any of the family, and I knew it. My 
hopes were scattered to the winds. At breakfast, un- 
able to eat any solid food, I swallowed my coffee in 
solemn silence, and as soon as the meal was ended, 
went forth to look after my horse. Outside of the stable 
I heard two negroes talking. One of them stuttered: 

"D-d-d-dat ar man come cotin' Miss Sally — he — 
he ain't n-n-nothing but a tackey." 
278 



MY VILE BEARD 

"Hoccum he ain't? He got good hoss and bridle 
is anybody, don't keer whar they come from." 

"He d-d-don't war no strops to his britchis.' 

" But he got money— I seen it! " replied my defender. 

" An-an-an he don't war no gallowses." 

" Huccum he don't war no gallowses 1 How you 
know, I reckon!" 

" Didn't I — I — I see him d-d-dis morning, when dey 
c-c-come to try him f-f-fore he dress?" 

"Well, if you sho' he don't war no gallowses — ef 
you sho' — den de sooner he clear out from here de 
better. I don't wants to b'long to no man whar don't 
war gallowses, cause I nuvver see no gent'man but 
what he war'd gallowses — a par uv um. Evin a ove'- 
seer, he war one. 'Spectable people nuvver fastens 
their britchis with a buckle and tongue, like a gearth, 
and Miss Sally ain't gwine hav him, ef you heer my 
racket," 

This was enough for me. Two hours afterward I 
left Squire Cooke's. Never returned there — and never 
will — not if I had a million "par uv gallowses." 



279 



XII 

A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

/^NE must be a bachelor of five and thirty, and 
^-^ often sick in his sohtary room, to appreciate fully 
the comfort, and in fact the pleasure, of being sick as 
a married man. Many pleasant sicknesses have I had 
since my marriage, but the happiest of them all was 
one of the longest of them all — a six weeks attack of 
catarrh at Lichfield, in Orange County. During the 
paroxysms of coughing I suffered a good deal; at 
other times I was comparatively free of pain, and able 
to read and scribble at will. My good wife brought 
me my meals to a nice little upstairs room, warmed 
by a cosy wood fire. Without, all was cold and cheer- 
less; within, all was sweet quietude and peace. The 
world with its sinfulness and its cares was far removed 
from me. I wanted never to go back to it again, and 
would fain have been an invalid all my days rather 
than encounter the temptations and troubles of life 
again. I look back upon that sickness as a glimpse, 
all too brief, of heaven. Dr. Edmond Taliaferro 
attended me. His visits were not numerous, but 
enough to impress indelibly upon my memory his 
quick bright eye, his perfect healthfulness ("sound as 
a nut" is truer of him than of any man I ever knew), 
280 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

and his excellence as a man and a physician. How 
much good that admirable little man has done, and 
\how poorly paid he has often been, there is no telling. 
From the bed in which I now lie I send him greeting, 
God-speed and a thousand kind wishes. 

And what shall I say about that dear old doctor 
whose picture in my photograph album I looked at but 
yesterday, recalling the while the sad, happy memories 
of Middleburg? Hale and hearty, the picture of 
strength, able to buffet all the mountain storms that 
come, his joyous laugh comes to me over the years 
that have lapsed since we parted, and I can see him 
plainly in his front porch, with his grandchildren play- 
ing around him. He and his wife were with us that 
night when God called away the little boy who was 
the delight, the splendor and the hope of our lives, and 
he was with us that bright July morning when God 
sent us another son, *'the sweetest boy in the world," 
as I called him in his babyhood, and often call him 
now, albeit he is six years old and over. This pulse 
in my wrist must be beating very slowly when I cease 
to remember with admiration and affection "Uncle 
William" and "Aunt Kate." Heaven send them a 
sweet sunset before the cloudless morning that awaits 
them hereafter. 

Ah! Doctor, I'll tell you what I would like. I would 
like to present you with a golden backgammon box 
and a set of diamond men, and allow you to beat me 
one — just one — time in your life. It would make you 
so happy. 

In "Abraham Page" or "What I know about Ben 
281 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

Eccles," I forget which, there is the finest tribute to 
the country doctor that I have seen in any language. 
But how is it that the theme never awakened the 
muse of Goldsmith or Shenstone or the pencil of a 
genre artist of the first order. The rusty long-tailed 
overcoat tucked well under the legs, the tall napless 
hat drawn down over the eyes, the ears protected by a 
comfort of a fiery red from cold, the beard white with 
snow or sleet, the compressed lips, the yellow leggings 
tied with green list, the thick yarn socks, knitted by 
some grateful hand, covering the boots, the gray sad- 
dle-blanket peeping out from under the sheepskin 
covered saddle, the black, medical saddle-bags, slick 
with long using, the faithful horse plodding through 
frozen mire or plashing through the puddles and 
brooks — here are the elements for a dark winter day 
— but better still, these same figures of horse and rider 
dimly describe through the thick darkness of the winter's 
night, when the fierce icy gusts are pouring through 
the mountain passes, bending the naked trees by the 
roadside, and almost beating down the gray-haired 
rider, who must trust to his sure-footed steed; for who 
can see the way on such a night in the midst of such a 
storm? And then the entrance of the doctor into the 
sick chamber lighted up by the log fire, the sick woman 
in the old-fashioned bed with valence and teaster turn- 
ing her hollow eyes to him with an ineffable look of 
gladness and of hope. 

What must be the thought of the good old doctor 
as he passes in through the tempest and the horror of 
thick darkness, often unattended and alone, oftener 
282 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

still knowing that he can never be paid even a pittance 
for all he is braving and enduring! Memories of his 
student-life come to him, and of his early triumphs 
and failures in practice, of his first married days, of 
his own sick child left at home, and of the cozy cham- 
ber where his wife awaits his uncertain coming. De- 
spite the rushing blast and the roaring mountain tor- 
rent he is fording, there come to him the cries of infants 
he has ushered into this world of pain, the last long 
suspiration and the wide ghastly yawn of the dying, 
the shrieks of bereaved women, and the suppressed 
tumultuous sob of stricken men — these come to him 
as he courageously breasts biting wind and freezing 
Tain to reach his patient. In the cold gray dawn, his 
mission ended and the sufferer relieved, he sallies 
forth. The winds are still, the wide expanse of snow, 
unbroken yet by hoof or foot, stretches over the miles, 
no longer long, that lie between him and his home. 
As he beats onward the first smoke rises from the 
peaceful homesteads, and he hurries along to get his 
bright welcome and his wife's kiss, to snatch a break- 
fast and again to mount his horse and plod his daily 
round through snow and slush. And this is life to the 
country doctor and his fellows. 

Brave hearts, noble gentlemen, benefactors seldom 
fully requited, in my summer trips away from the city I 
never pass one of you without an inward bowing of 
the head in reverence and the uttering of a silent bene- 
diction upon you. Ye are the salt of the earth, and 
your reward is assured in the bright hereafter. 

Of late years our physician has been a sort of Quin- 
283 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

bus Flestrin, or man-mountain, who has done so much 
for me and mine that it would be a reUef to me to abuse 
him violently. It is not in the nature of a weakling 
like myself to look with complacency upon any man 
who is heaped up and running over with health. The 
Egyptians wrapped their dead in endless windings of 
cloth, but nature has bandaged Dr. Coleman with such 
great ropes and coils of bodily well-being that he may 
be regarded as a real mummy of health. Disease 
might feel for his vitals for a century to no purpose, 
and I should think that Death himself, after leveling 
his spear at him, would take a second look, and saying, 
"It's no use; that fellow is too thickly health-plated," 
pass on to the other side. Twice a day for many long 
months have I seen that strong Roman head enter my 
doorway, and once a day for weeks has he, on other 
occasions, visited me or my children. His ponderous 
tread and his portentous door-slam are familiar to us 
all. I should like to praise his skill, to tell about his 
art of winning the love of women and children, and 
the charm of his strong presence in the sick room, 
but may not trust myself. He has just delivered me 
from the pangs of diphtheria, and I might overdo the 
thing. Fain would I hope that I have done with him 
for a good long while at least; but I suspect that it 
will be another case of Michael and the dragon con- 
tending for the body of Moses, and that, after a suffi- 
cient number of brilliant victories, the dragon will at 
last get the better of Michael Coleman.* 

* Alas! the patient and the physician were but a short time 
parted. Dr. Coleman was himself declining when he ministered 
284 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

City physicians undergo less hardships and fatigue, 
but are subject oftentimes to a heavier weight of re- 
sponsibility, than most of their country brethren. 
True, they have more and better appliances, and can 
generally call in consultation when needed more ability 
than the country doctor has at command; but en- 
demics and epidemics sweep over the cities more often 
than the country, the ghastlier forms of schirrus and 
fungus are more prevalent there, and men of the great- 
est distinction, flocking to the cities, have more fre- 
quently to be treated. Moreover, the city physician is 
much more critically and jealously watched than his 
country brother. On the other hand, the latter has 
too often to rely wholly on himself in cases of the great- 
est emergency, as in accouchments and capital cases 
of surgery. But I will not pretend to strike the bal- 
ance between them. God knows that both classes 
have a hard enough time. For nothing in this world 
would I undertake the labor or responsibility of either 
of them. Fact is, I couldn't; it is not in me, or any- 
where about me. 

To country and to city doctors I owe more than I 
can ever repay. I think that in this world it happens 
not seldom that they who would be princes in gener- 
osity, and give and give forever, are not only debarred 
from giving, but are doomed forever to receive; and 
I believe that in the great book of the recording angel 
there are pages upon pages filled with the credits of 

to the sufferer in his final illness, and three months after the last 
sad scene of Dr. Bagby's life, he too was taken, and left a city 
in tears. 

285 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

gratitude which found no voice for very shame of mere 
words of requital, and because the fitting deed could 
not go hand in hand with the warm will welling up 
from a profoundly thankful heart. 

Ah! gentlemen, had I my way there would not be 
wanting some large silver watches and some moder- 
ately high-priced snuff-boxes for a good many of you. 
But in earnest, if I were a millionaire, I do not believe 
that all the stinginess incident to that aflfliction could 
keep me from setting rich men an example of honor 
done to those that richly deserve to be honored. Car- 
rington should clear for me the most spacious room in 
the exchange. It should be most beautifully and be- 
comingly decorated. There would I gather the bright- 
est men and the loveliest women in the land, and my 
doctors from far and near should be there. At a fit- 
ting hour I would command the peace, and then some 
silver-tongued Keiley or Stringfellow, gifted in speech, 
should say the splendid words that ought to be said 
in praise of your noble profession. Then the sweetest 
girl in all Virginia — a doctor's daughter most likely — 
should in the eyes of that brilliant assembly pin to your 
lapels the badge (newly instituted by myself) of the 
Knightly Order of the Golden Pill. No, I do but jest. 
She should decorate you with the cross of the Legion 
of True Honor, in that it would be given, not to the 
slayers, but to the savers of mankind. And then, oh 
then, there should be a supper, such a supper — a supper 
of the gods, an Olympian feast compounded for the 
special delectation of doctors, from which not one of 
you should rise till he felt too rich to accept a cent 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

from A. T. Stewart or Wm. B. As tor. And then I 
would consider myself moderately even with a few of 
you. 

However ill-paid and often unpaid physicians may 
be, they have the consolation of knowing that emi- 
nence and success in almost every other calling and 
profession is a selfish success limited in its good effects 
to the man and his immediate family; whereas in 
medicine great success is based, necessarily, upon 
great and wide-spread beneficence. To even moder- 
ately distinguished medical men, indeed to all but the 
very meanest and most worthless doctors, there must 
come thrills of pleasure so supreme that only the min- 
ister of the gospel who feels that he has been the in- 
strument of saving a soul can hope to taste a pleasure 
at all comparable with it. 

Faithful keepers of the great seal of family secrets, 
trusty wardens of the ineffably precious health of our 
loved ones, silent and pitying witnesses of human suf- 
fering and human weakness, who shall rightly tell 
your worth, and with what patent of nobility shall ye 
be fitly honored! Statistics show that, man for man, 
your profession has fewer culprits than any other what- 
soever. The simple figures, unfeeling and unflatter- 
ing, bear testimony to the lofty virtue of your calling. 
It is the hope of humanity, and there is reason for the 
hope, that the day will come when there shall be no 
more great lawyers, for there shall be no more litiga- 
tion; when there shall be no great warriors, because 
wars shall have ceased; and when even the need for 
great statesmen shall have passed, since mankind will 
287 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

have outlived the infirmities that demand legislative 
correction or restraint. But that day can never come 
on this earth when men will not die. A healthy race, 
obedient to the laws of right living, will require fiew 
doctors (doctors truly, that their chief functions will 
then be the teaching of sanitary principles, and the 
mode of life demanded for the highest physical devel- 
opment); but these few will be crowned with the 
laurel that once rested only upon the brow of the sol- 
dier, and with the bays that were reserved solely for 
the jurist and the statesman. 

The mind makes many pictures, and this is one that 
often delights me. In the realm where there will be 
no use for doctors, but where many doctors shall be, 
it shall come to pass that beside the river of living 
waters, and under the trees whose leaves are for the 
healing of the nations, each upon his little knoll of 
emerald sward, the good doctors of this world shall 
be seated. Celestial airs, borne from the trembling 
wires of harps attuned to praise the Great Physician, 
and mingled with the divine odors of amaranth and 
asphodel, shall pass by on the soft, pulsing breeze. 
And around each doctor shall be the host, small or 
great as the case may be, of them to whom he minist- 
ered on earth. They shall press forward with lips no 
longer dumb, with hands no longer afraid to tell by 
their clasp what even the lips might not like to say, 
and with eyes blazing full and warm from the unmasked 
soul. And from lips and hands and eyes shall come 
measureless requital. And the litUe ones, the little 
ones whose first wail and whose last sigh the good 



A PIECE ABOUT DOCTORS 

doctors heard, they shall come with purest kisses and 
cherubic palms, with such sweet thanks and caressing 
as only the always-angels know. And then — the pic- 
ture falls softly and slowly away. 



289 



XIII 
THE PAWNEE WAR 

A REMINISCENCE 

TN the southwestern corner of the Capital Square 
•^ there is a truncated brick tower, modelled appa- 
rently after the design of the Tower of Babel, as con- 
ceived by the artists who illustrate Sunday-school 
books, except that the sides of the superimposed layers 
do not slope, but run vertically up a distance of ten or 
fifteen feet, when they are suddenly contracted, and 
another layer of lesser diameter begins. Not above 
forty feet rises this humble and ugly structure. On 
the top of it there is a homely wooden belfry, and in 
that belfry a large bell hangs. In peace times this bell 
struck the hours of the day and night, gave the alarm 
of fire, and called the truant "Alligators"* from their 

* For many years the members of the Virginia House of Dele- 
gates were nicknamed "AUigators." The origin of the term is 
Baid to be this: An uncouth, roughly dressed Dutchman one day 
attempted to make his way into the hall, but was met by the 
doorkeeper with the query, "What do you want?" I vants to 
go in dere." "Whom do you want to see?" " I don't vants to 
see nobody; I vants to go in." "You can't go in, sir; the 
House is in session, and it is against the rules. If you want to 
see any member I will call him out." "I vants to go in, "per- 
sisted the Dutchman. "I tell you again, you can't go in," re- 
torted the doorkeeper angrily. "But I ish a Alligator." "A 

290 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

haunts in the barrooms and faro-banks when there 
was a close vote in the General Assembly — once the 
House of Burgesses — or important public business to 
be dispatched. On rare occasions, such as the John 
Brown excitement, the bell summoned the military 
population of the city to arms. 

A room in the lower part of the little brick tower was 
used as a guard-house, as well for the policemen of 
Mayor Mayo (whose business was that precisely of 
other policemen) as for a squad of the State Guard, 
who acted as sentries about the capitol and watched 
over the penitentiary convicts employed in grading the 
walks, and ornamenting and improving the grass-plots, 
shrubbery, and trees that adorn the square. The 
State Guard would cry very small in comparison with 
the Coldstreams, or the Garde Imperiale. They 
numbered less than a hundred men; but they were 
well organized, drilled, and equipped, and commanded 
by a very competent officer in the person of Captain 
Dimmock, formerly of the United States Army. This 
single company of infantry contained every regular 
soldier Virginia had at her command when, true to 
her motto. Sic Semper Tyrannis, she raised her spear 
against the despot lately enthroned in Washington. 

About one o'clock, p. m., on the Sunday succeeding 

what " cried the puzzled doorkeeper. " I ish a Alligator mine- 
self." The doorkeeper stared in amazement. "What did you 
say — a Alligator " "Yaw," roared the now excited Dutchman; 
" I ish one o' dem Alligators from the Kounty of Wit! " A light 
dawned on the doorkeeper's mind. "Now I understand you," 
he exclaimed; "you are a delegate from the county of Wythe. 
Walk in, sir." Ever since the term "Alligator" has been a 
household word in Virginia. 

291 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

the passage of the ordinance of secession, a soldier 
ascended the wooden steps under the bell in the little 
brick tower, seized the heavy clapper in his hand, 
made two hard strokes, paused an instant, and then 
made a third. Sullen and deep the notes floated out 
in the balmy spring air. 

Far and wide the toscin rang over the city, then busy 
in the worship of the Prince of Peace. The clergy- 
men of the many churches hard by the Capitol Square, 
who that morning for the first time had ceased to pray 
publicly for the President of the United States, were 
uttering the after-sermon petition, "Grant, O Lord, 
that the words that we have this day heard," when 
"the outward ears" of their kneeling congregations 
were smitten by the boding sounds from the brick 
tower. Ere the prayer was ended more than half the 
congregation had disappeared. Scarcely a man re- 
mained in the churches. The dismay of the clergy- 
men at witnessing this sudden depletion of their flocks 
was surpassed only by the chill that struck to the hearts 
of the women when their "affrayed eyes" were opened, 
and fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and lovers were 
missing. 

Father of Mercy! was it possible that the hirelings 
of Lincoln had so soon gained the vincinity of the 
capital of the Old Dominion, and must priceless blood 
be shed immediately, and on the Sabbath day ? What 
else could this alarm and the sudden disappearance 
of the men mean? How quickly the blooming cheeks 
paled, and the pulses in the slender wrists went cold 
and slow! 

292 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

There was no one in the city, famihar with "big 
wars," to command 

"Silence that dreadful bell!" 

The soldier with the clapper in his hand manfully 
anviled the resonant metal, and loud note succeeded 
hollow murmur until the whole April air seemed vi- 
brating. Thousands of lips were pleading for infor- 
mation, and, for a time, none was found wise enough 
to answer. Some terrible thing had happened, or was 
about to happen on the instant. What was it ? What 
could it be? "Rumor, painted full of tongues," was 
never so busy as during the half hour after the churches 
were closed and the congregations dispersed. But 
presently the true story was told, and passed from 
mouth to mouth in hurried, sometimes trembling ac- 
cents: The Governor of Virginia had received official 
intelligence that the Yankee sloop-of-war '' Pawnee" had 
passed City Point, at the confluence of the Appomattox 
and James Rivers, and was steaming hard for Rich- 
mond, with the intention of shelling it and burning it 
to the ground! 

Monstrous intelligence! City Point was sixty miles 
away; the river was narrow and tortuous; in many 
places the channel ran so close to the banks that the 
felling of a single tree would have arrested the prog- 
ress of any vessel; besides, the Pawnee was a wooden 
ship (monitors yet lay dormant in the brain of Erics- 
son), and the steep bluffs on the farms of Drewry and 
Chaffin, which afterward served the city so well, 
afforded admirable vantage ground for field-pieces and 
293 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

perfect shelter for marksmen. What gunboat would 
ever run such a gauntlet for the mad chance of shelling 
a city of forty thousand inhabitants ? The foolhardiest 
midshipman in Uncle Sam's service, even when crazed 
with sweet champagne extracted from the pippins of 
the Jerseys and medicated in the cellars of the Five 
Points, never dreamed of so insane a project. All 
this is very plain, now that three eventful years overlie 
that memorable Sunday in Richmond. It was not so 
clear to the excited inhabitants, new to all the strategy 
and appliances of war. A few saw the absurdity of 
the matter; but the men made ready to meet the 
enemy, come how he might, though all felt that this 
aquatic onset was a most ungenerous and contemptible 
mode of attacking a people accustomed only to dry- 
land engagements with partridges and squirrels. The 
companies of the First Regiment of Virginia Volun- 
teers repaired promptly to their drill-rooms, and in an 
incredibly short space of time were ready for marching 
orders. Randolph's battery of light howitzers was 
equally prompt, and so was the only troop of horse the 
city could muster — the "Governor's Mounted Guard," 
as it was called. All told, there were perhaps between 
six and seven hundred organized men, most of whom 
were as familiar with military forms as volunteers in 
time of peace ever are. These were prepared for any 
duty they might be called on to perform in less than an 
hour from the time the bell began tolling. 

There were some affecting scenes. Mothers, sis- 
ters, and sweethearts came down to the drill-rooms, 
to interchange a parting word with the young men, 
294 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

and to fill their haversacks with something good to 
eat. These tender, inexperienced girls beheld in imag- 
ination the manly forms of their loved ones torn and 
mangled by pitiless fragments of Yankee shells, soon 
to explode over the doomed city, and in the midst of 
the serried ranks of infantry. No wonder the fine 
young fellows felt a tremor about the heart and a suf- 
fusion of the eyes which ill became veteran soldiers who 
had taken part in the John Brown war. No wonder 
they wished the "women would go home and quit 
bothering." But these partings, affecting as they 
were, sank into insignificance when compared with 
the solemn and energetic earnestness of the male citi- 
zens who did not belong to the volunteer companies, 
but felt it, nevertheless, to be their bounden duty to 
defend their city, their families, and their properties 
from the ravages of the ruthless and watery invader. 
There was a gathering in hot haste of these, which 
might well have vied with that in Belgium's capital, 
besung by the Lord George Gordon Noel Byron. 
What weapons did they not seize? — fowling-pieces 
mortally oxydized; immemorial duck-guns, of pro- 
digious bore; ancient falchions that had flashed in 
the eyes of Cornwallis at Yorktown; pistols of every 
conceivable calibre, and of all possible shades of in- 
utility; and, in one instance at least, a veritable blund- 
erbuss, so encompassed with verdigris that it passed 
for a cucumber of precocious growth! All these, 
loaded or unloaded, with or without caps or flints, to 
fight a gunboat mounted with ten-inch Columbiads! 
Everything that could shoot or cut was called into 
295 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

requisition, and Sutherland the gunsmith, albeit it 
was Sunday, was called upon to open his store, and, 
complying, did a rousing business, disposing of nearly 
all his stock of arms and fixed ammunition in two 
short hours — the result of which was the enhancement, 
the very next day, of revolvers, bowie-knives, dirks, 
and even long-bladed clasp-knives, to the extent of 
full fifty per cent. 

Heavier metal than any Sutherland had to sell was 
needed in the great trial at hand, and of this the citi- 
zen heroes were well aware. Accordingly, a party 
of them rushed to the Virginia armory, and out of the 
large store of ancient ordnance there accumulated, 
selected one of a pair of magnificent bronze guns, 
quaintly but beautifully embellished, which had been 
presented to the State by the Count de Rochambeau 
in the name of the French Government. This rare 
and costly piece, weighing probably two tons, was by 
some strange art, which the frenzy of the moment sug- 
gested, hoisted upon a dray, or some other strong 
vehicle. A mixed multitude of horses, mules, and 
men were hurriedly gathered, the motley motive power 
applied, and the whole party dashed up the hill to 
Main Street, and then down the street at a terrific 
pace, until they reached the Custom House, and 
there the brave old gun, indignant at the rough, unmili- 
tary usage it had received, incontinently leaped out of 
the dray into the street, where it lay for many weeks, 
a stranded Triton among the schools of martial min- 
nows that floated by it, much wondering at its great 
size and the purpose for which it had been placed in 
296 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

that position — the majority being of opinion that it 
was put there to defend, not the Custom House, for 
that contained no treasure, but the Virginia Banks, 
just opposite. How this was to be effected was not 
clear, seeing that the gun was on the ground and there 
was probably neither a ball nor a cartridge in the city 
to fit it; but the military critics of those days were 
mostly from the country, and not familiar, as thousands 
of them now are, with the manual of heavy artillery. 
It must not be supposed that the infantry, light 
artillery and horse waited for the upsetting of the big 
gun. By no means. Long before they had marched 
off, under what commander-in-chief history has failed 
to record, in the direction of Rocketts — the euphonious 
title of the lower part of the city — near the wharves 
and the landings of the sea-going steamers that then 
plied between Richmond and the principal maritime 
cities of the North. Meantime every "coign of van- 
tage" was occupied by anxious watchers. Wives, 
whose tearful weight had just relieved the throttled 
necks of husbands already heavily freighted with horse- 
pistols, bowie-knives, brandy-flasks, and cold ham and 
biscuit, were now recovered from their "wounds," 
and straining their eyes from the upper windows and 
porches to catch the first glimpse of the dreaded 
Pawnee. The top of the capitol, the tops of houses, 
church steeples, the "observatories," as they are un- 
scientifically called, of hotels, and every high point in 
and around the city, were alive with human beings. 
Church Hill in particular, which overlooks the river 
at Rocketts, was swarming with human beings of 
297 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

both sexes, all ages, and every complexion, for the ne- 
groes were now as anxious and excited as their masters 
and mistresses. 

It was whispered that the Grand Army of Rich- 
mond intended to "make a stand" at Rocketts, and 
give battle to the Pawnee, for it was taken for granted 
that that vessel would make fast to the wharf before 
she opened her broadsides or gave tongue even to the 
pivot rifle in the bow. This was an additional incen- 
tive to the dense crowd on Church Hill to remain just 
where they were, at least until the enemy hove in 
sight. The army did make a stand at Rocketts, but 
it was merely a halt for refreshments — fresh quids of 
tobacco. The line of glittering bayonets was soon 
again in motion, the cannon rumbled, the war-horses 
kicked up a mighty dust, and the column quickly 
wound over the hill and was out of sight. Still the 
multitudes on the towers and house-tops watched and 
waited. Like a serpentine silver band the river lay 
stretched before them, miles and miles away, without 
a cloud to dim its tranquil argent sheen. Far or near, 
none could descry the Pawnee. The sun sank low, 
and at length set in the peaceful heavens. Still no 
Pawnee. Twilight deepened into night, the church 
bells called the people from the hills and house-tops 
to prayers — prayers of gratitude for deliverance from 
"the pestilence that steameth at noon-day." but doth 
not often venture up narrow, shallow, and unknown 
channels when thick darkness covereth the earth. 
The Pawnee never came. The troops bivouacked 
that night in the fields on the river-shore, some five or 
298 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

six miles below the city, and marched back the next 
day to resume the exercises which were to fit them 
for actual service, of which they were destined to see 
far more than they dreamed. The night was mild, 
and the march, the bivouac, and the shell practice in 
which the Howitzers indulged the following morning, 
were regarded by the "boys" as a jolly frolic. No 
accident and but one untoward event happened. A 
son of Dr. Beverley Tucker, Professor in the Rich- 
mond Medical College, contracted that night a pul- 
monary disease which speedily proved fatal. Young 
Tucker was, in Virginia at least, the first victim of the 
war. 

Thus began, progressed, and ended the famous 
"Pawnee War." We may laugh at it now, for there 
were many laughable things about it. Not the least 
of these was the consternation produced in the coun- 
try about Richmond by the exaggerated reports car- 
ried out of the corporate limits by self-elected couriers. 
Among other wild stories, was one to the effect that 
the Pawnee Indians had come down the Central Rail- 
road, taken possession of the city, and were scalping 
and tomahawking the citizens at a frightful rate. This 
story was actually believed, and many agitated ladies 
fled to the house of a daughter of General Richardson, 
the Adjutant-General of Virginia, as if there was a 
charm about that powerful title which ensured safety 
to all its owner's relatives and friends. Yes, we may 
laugh at the Pawnee War, and own frankly that there 
was something of a panic that day in Richmond. But 
then, as in times more alarming, when the tocsin 
299 



THE PAWNEE WAR 

again sounded, and with better cause, Richmond 
showed fight, and doubtless would have made it had 
there been occasion. If that was her first panic, it 
was her last. A year afterward one hundred thousand 
men, and thrice one hundred pieces of cannon threat- 
ened her, with scarce an earthwork between them and 
their prey; but she was calm and smiling, for Lee con- 
fronted the host of her foes, and Jackson was coming. 



300 



XIV 

HOW RUBENSTEIN PLAYED 

" TUD, they say you heard Rubenstein play when you 
'^ were in New York." 

"I did, in the cool." 

"Well, tell us about it." 

"What! me? I might's well tell you about the 
creation of the world." 

"Come, now; no mock modesty. Go ahead." 

"Well, sir, he had the blamedest, biggest, catty- 
cornedest planner you ever laid eyes on; somethin' 
like a distractid billiard table on three legs. The lid 
was heisted, and mighty well it was. If it hadn't 
been he'd a-tore the intire insides clean out, and scat- 
tered 'em to the four winds of heaven." 

"Played well, did he?" 

" You bet he did ; but don't interrup' me. When he 
first set down he 'peard to keer mighty little 'bout 
playin', and wished he hadn' come. He tweedle- 
leedled a little on the trible, and twoodle-oodle-oodled 
some on the base — just foolin' and boxin' the thing's 
jaws for bein' in his way. And I says to a man settin' 
next to me, s'l, 'what sort of fool playin' is that?' 
And he says, *Heish!' But presently his hands com- 
menced chasin' one 'nother up and down the keys, 
301 



HOW RUBENSTEIN PLAYED 

like a passel of rats scamperin' through a garret very 
swift. Parts of it was sweet, though, and reminded 
me of a sugar squirrel turnin' the wheel of a candy 
cage. 

" 'Now,' I says to my neighbor, 'he's showin' off. 
He thinks he's a doing of it; but he ain't got no idee, 
no plan of nuthin'. If he'd play me up a tune of 
some kind or other, I'd ' 

"But my neighbor says 'Heish!' very impatient. 

"I was just about to git up and go home, bein' 
tired of that foolishness, when I heard a little bird 
waking up away off in the woods, and calling sleepy- 
like to his mate, and I looked up and I see that Ruben 
was beginnin' to take some interest in his business, 
and I set down agin. It was the peep 'o day. The 
light come faint from the east, the breeze blowed 
gentle and fresh, some more birds waked up in the 
orchard, then some more in the trees near the house, 
and all begun singin' together. People begun to stir, 
and the gal opened the shutters. Just then the first 
beam of the sun fell upon the blossoms; a leetle more 
and it tetcht the roses on the bushes, and the next 
thing it was broad day; the sun fairly blazed; the 
birds sang like they'd split their little throats; all the 
leaves was movin', and flashin' diamonds of dew, and 
the whole wide world was bright and happy as a 
king. Seemed to me like there was a good breakfast 
in every house in the land, and not a sick child or 
woman anywhere. It was a fine mornin'. 

"And I says to my neighbor, 'That's music, that is.' 

"But he glar'd at me like he'd like to cut my throat. 
302 



HOW RUBENSTEIN PLAYED 

"Presently the wind turned; it begun to thicken up, 
and a kind of gray mist come over things; I got low- 
spirited d'rectly. Then a silver rain began to fall. I 
could see the drops touch the ground; some flashed up 
like long pearl ear-rings, and the rest rolled away li'e 
round rubies. It was pretty, but melancholy. Then 
the pearls gathered themselves into long strands and 
necklaces, and then they melted into thin silver streams 
running between golden gravels, and then the streams 
joined each other at the bottom of the hill, and made 
a brook that flowed silent except that you could kinder 
see the music, specially when the bushes on the banks 
moved as the music went along down the valley. I 
could smell the flowers in the meadow. But the sun 
didn't shine, nor the birds sing; it was a foggy day, 
but not cold. The most curious thing was the little 
white angel boy, like you see in pictures, that run 
ahead of the music brook, and led it on, and on, away 
out of the world, where no man ever was — I never 
was, certain. I could see that boy just as plain as I 
see you. Then the moonlight came, without any sun- 
set, and shone on the grave-yards, where some few 
ghosts lifted their hands and went over the wall, and 
between the black sharp-top trees splendid marble 
houses rose up, with fine ladies in the lit up windows, 
and men that loved 'em, but could never get a-nigh 
'em, and played on guitars under the trees, and made 
me that miserable I could a-cried, because I wanted 
to love somebody, I don't know who better than the 
men with guitars did. Then the sun went down, it 
got dark, the wind moaned and wept like a lost child 
303 



HOW RUBENSTEIN PLAYED 

for its dead mother, and I could a got up then and 
there and preached a better sermon than any I ever 
Ustened to. There wasn't a thing in the world left 
to live for, not a blame thing, and yet I didn't want 
the music to stop one bit. It was happier to be miser- 
able than to be happy without being miserable. I 
couldn't understand it. I hung my head and pulled 
out my hankerchief, and blowed my nose loud to keep 
from cry in'. My eyes is weak anyway; I didn't want 
anybody to be a-gazin' at me a-snivlin', and its no- 
body's business what I do with my nose. It's mine. 
But some several glared at me, mad as Tucker. 

"Then, all of a sudden, old Ruben changed his 
tune. He ripped and he rar'd, he tipped and tar'd, 
he pranced and he charged like the grand entry at a 
circus. 'Peared to me that all the gas in the house 
was turned on at once, things got so bright, and I hilt 
up my head, ready to look any man in the face, and 
not afeard of nothin'. It was a circus, and a brass 
band, and a big ball, all goin' on at the same time. 
He lit into them keys like a thousand of brick, he give 
'em no rest, day nor night; he set every livin' joint 
in me a-goin', and not bein' able to stand it no longer, 
I jumpt spang onto my seat, and jest hollored: 

" ' Go it, my Rube!' 

"Every blamed man, woman and child in the house 
riz on me, and shouted, 'Put him out! put him out!' 

" 'Put your great-grandmother's grizzly-gray-green- 
ish cat into the middle of next month!' I says. 'Tech 
me, if you dare! I paid my money, and you jest come 
a-nigh me.' 

304 



HOW KUBENSTEIN PLAYED 

"With that, some several p'licemen run up, and I 
had to simmer down. But I would a fit any fool that 
laid hands on me, for I was bound to hear Ruby out 
or die. 

"He had changed his tune again. He hopt-light 
ladies and tip-toed fine from eend to eend of the key- 
board. He played soft, and low, and solemn. I 
heard the church bells over the hills. The candles 
in heaven was lit, one by one. I saw the stars rise. 
The great organ of eternity began to play from the 
world's end to the world's end, and all the angels went 
to prayers. Then the music changed to water, full of 
feeling that couldn't be thought, and began to drop — 
drip, drop, drip, drop — clear and sweet, like tears of 
joy fallin' into a lake of glory. It was sweeter than 
that. It was as sweet as a sweetheart sweetenin' sweet- 
ness with white sugar, mixt with powdered silver and 
seed diamonds. It was too sweet. I tell you the audi- 
ence cheered. Ruben he kinder bowed, like he wanted 
to say, 'Much obleeged, but I'd rather you wouldn't 
interrup' me.' 

"He stopt a minute or two, to fetch breath. Then 
he got mad. He run his fingers through his hair, he 
shoved up his sleeves, he opened his coat tails a leetle 
further, he drug up his stool, he leaned over, and, sir, 
he just went for that old planner. He slapt her face, 
he boxed her jaws, he pulled her nose, he pinched her 
ears and he scratched her cheeks, till she farly yelled. 
He knockt her down and he stompt on her shameful. 
She bellowed like a bull, she bleated like a calf, she 
howled like a hound, she squeeled like a pig, she 
305 



HOW RUBENSTEIN PLAYED 

shrieked like a rat, and then he wouldn't let her up. 
He run a quarter-stretch down the low grounds of the 
base, till he got clean into the bowels of the earth, and 
you heard thunder galloping after thunder, through 
the hollows and caves of perdition; and then he fox- 
chased his right hand with his left till he got away 
out of the treble into the clouds, whar the notes was 
finer than the pints of cambric needles, and you 
couldn't hear nothin' but the shadders of 'em. And 
then he wouldn't let the old planner go. He for'ard- 
two'd, he crost over first gentleman, he crost over first 
lady, he balanced to pards, he chassade right and 
left, back to your places, he all hands'd aroun', ladies 
to the right, promenade all, in and out, here and there, 
back and forth, up and down, perpetual motion, 
doubled and twisted, and tied, and turned, and tacked, 
and tangled into forty-'leven thousand double bow- 
knots. By jings! it was a mixtery. And then he 
wouldn't let the old pianner go. He fetcht up his 
right wing, he fetcht up his left wing, he fetcht up his 
centre, he fetched up his reserves. He fired by file, 
he fired by platoons, by company, by regiments and 
by brigades. He opened his cannon, siege guns down 
thar, Napoleons here, twelve-pounders yonder, big 
guns, little guns, middle-size guns, round shot, shell, 
shrapnel, grape, canister, mortars, mines and maga- 
zines, every livin' battery and bomb a'goin' at the 
same time. The house trembled, the lights danced, 
the walls shuk, the floor come up, the ceilin' come 
down, the sky split, the ground rockt — heavens and 
earth, creation, sweet potatoes, Moses, nine-pences, 
306 



HOW RUBENSTEIN PLAYED 

glory, ten-penny nails, my Mary Ann, hallelujah, 
Samson in a 'simmon tree, Jeroosal'm, Tump Tomp- 
son in a tumbler-cart, roodle-oodle-oodle-oodle — • 
ruddle-uddle-uddle-uddle — raddle-addle-addle-addle- 
addle — riddle - iddle - iddle - iddle — reetle - eetle-eetle- 
eetle-eetle-eetle — p-r-r-r-r-r-lang! per lang! per plang! 
p-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-lang! Bang! 

"With that hang! he lifted hisself bodily into the ar', 
and he come down with his knees, his ten fingers, his 
ten toes, his elbows and his nose, striking every single 
solitary key on that planner at the same time. The 
thing busted and went off into seventeen hundred and 
fifty-seven thousand five hundred and forty-two hemi- 
demi-semi-quivers, and I know'd no mo'. 

"When I come too, I were under ground about 
twenty foot, in a place they call Oyster Bay, treatin' 
a Yankee that I never laid eyes on before, and never 
expect to ag'in. Day was a breakin' by the time I 
got to the St. Nicholas Hotel, and I pledge you my 
word I didn't know my name. The man asked me 
the number of my room, and I told him, 'Hot music 
on the half-shell for two!' I pintedly did." 



307 



FILL JOANSES 

A MONEFUL DITTE 

T T rHEN I wuz yung and in my priem, 
' ' I had sum meat uppun my boanses; 

I loss it all in sicks weeks' time, 
At a place they call Fill Joanses. 

Too and 20 yeer agoe it were — 
I cack'late it by my groanses — 

That I set 4th from Linchbug toun 
On a vizzit to Fill Joanses. 

Miss Bobry, she wuz with me, too, 
And Wilyum, bruther of Fill Joanses, 

Miss Jessie, with her eye so blue, — 
Wuz all a-stayin' at Fill Joanses. 

'Twuz in the good old days of ole — 
We was Monnuks on our throanses — 

The crap was wuth its weight in gole, 
At the plais they call Fill Joanses. 

Fillup then were but a boy, 

And Sedden toddlin oar the stoanses. 
He holp us to cumpleet our joy 

While a-stayin' at Fill Joanses. 
308 



FILL JOANSES 

Big Mister Willis at the mill, 

He had sum meat uppun his boanses; 
Prank Gnawl, he clum the red-clay hill, 

And Farmer John cum down to Joanses. 

Miss Mary Stannud, she was thar, — 

How mellojus was her toanses! 
Anuther gearl that had black har, 

And menny mo', wuz at Fill Joanses. 

Sech dinin' out and dinin' in, 

Sech drivin' o'er the rocky stoanses! 

My soul! I think it were a sin. 
The way they liv'd aroun' Fill Joanses. 

Sech lamb and jelly — everything, — 
But I were usen to corn poanses; 

Fat mutton was the truck — by jing! — 
That laid me out at Fillup Joanses. 

For from that day untoo this hour — 
The sartin fack to all well known is — 
My stummuk, she have loss her power. 
And leff it all at Fillup Joanses. 

Dyspepsy are a fearful ill; 

'Tis made of grunts and made of groanses; 
No tiem will settle that ar bill 

That I cuntrackted at Fill Joanses. 

My days is past in constunt pain. 
My nites in everlastin' moanses; 
309 



FILL JOANSES 

And oft I cuss, and cuss in vain, 
Tliat fatal summer at Fill Joanses. 

But sert'ny I duz luv to eet — 

Man warn't made to live on stoanses; 

And now I know 'twuz hard to beat 
That blessid summer at Fill Joanses, 

Ah! tiems is sadly changed since then; 

The Yanks has got us for thar oanses; 
Thar's not a man, not one in ten, 

Livs like they lived at Fillup Joanses. 

Bad as I feel, ef I could bring 

Them days agin, I'd heish my groanses; 
I'd fill my stummuk with mint sling. 

And dine wunst mo' at Fillup Joanses. 

The good ole man is livin' still. 
As young as ever in his boanses; 

Lass tiem I clum the red-clay hill. 
They had good eatin' at Fill Joanses. 

So mote it bee, so mote it bee, 

Twell deth shall heish up all our groanses; 
For not twell then will I agree 

To eat no mo' at Fillup Joanses. 



310 



AFTER APPOMATTOX 

" On his way to Richmond, General Lee stopped for the night 
near the residence of his brother, Mr. Carter Lee, of Powhatan 
county; and, although importuned by his brother to pass the 
night under his roof, the General persisted in pitching his tent by 
the side of the road, and going into camp as usual." — Taylor's 
^^ Four Years with General Lee," page 154. 

UPON a hill-top, bold and free, 
Ere that sad day is done, 
The soldier form and face of Lee 
Stand out against the sun. 

The strong, grey head is carried high, 

The firm hand grasps the rein; 
Earth nowhere holds such majesty, 

And nowhere hides such pain. 

A little onward now he rides, 

For he alone would be; 
But something more than space divides 

His staff from Robert Lee. 

Scarce can he tell the way he goes. 
Scarce feels the April air; 
311 






AFTER APPOMATTOX 



Heap'd in his breast, his country's woes 
Have filled him with despair. 

The purple mountains fade behind, 

Before him lies the sea; 
In all this world a fate unkind 

Leaves home nor hope for Lee. 

The rosy flush dies on the plain, 

And dismal shadows start; 
What tumult in his riven brain, 

What torture in his heart! 

The bright'ning stars are naught to him. 
Nor aught the sweet moonlight; 

His star has grown a-sudden dim — 
He never more shall fight. 

His work seems done, his day seems spent. 

What matters night or day! 
He will betake him to his tent. 

And, kneeling there, will pray. 

The cries that upward went that night 
Unto the great White Throne — 

The tears for guidance and for light— 
To God alone are known. 

Sacred throughout all coming time, 
Those sleepless hours shall be; 

For who can tell, in words sublime. 
The agony of Lee ? 
312 



d/ii^. 



